March 9th

Today I started out with little to do. I filed the files away from yesterday and helped out with that kind of thing and then tried to organize and edit the document with all the mothers and babies in the HIV monitoring program. A man came in and was talking to Lillian in another language and she finally turned around and said “Do you know power point?” Ha ha so the man was doing a presentation the next morning but needed to put together the presentation. He had never used it so needed some help and had seen me earlier and when he couldn’t find anyone else to help him around the hospital he came back around to where I was and asked. So he gave me his flash drive that he thought he had saved his notes on but turns out he didn’t know how to do that as well. People here just aren’t used to computers; it’s a very uncommon skill so I was excited to get to help.  So we finally found his document on his computer, I put it on the flash drive and took it to the desktop. I then was able to go through and turn it into a powerpoint for him. He was very impressed (all I did was make it very blank and copy and paste his notes that he wanted as slides, oh and I corrected a lot of spelling and punctuation errors).  Then he asked for me to put a photo in on the last slide. The photo was in a PDF article so I couldn’t copy or save the picture from it. So using my tools and tricks from Moses Lake Industries, I found the “snipping tool” on the Windows 7 and was able to cut the photo and save it as a picture for him. Then when I put it into the power point he and Lillian laughed and just thought it was so great. Lillian even asked me to do it again so she could see how I did it. It was highly impressive I assure you all. It was nice to be able to help out with a skill I’m very good at.

This afternoon I just continued to help Lillian, cutting and counting pills. 

International Women's Day - March 8

(pictures soon I hope! I got some great ones!!!)

So do any of you women have March 8^th off each year? Many of them here do. It’s sure a day to be celebrated. I mean think of what the U.S. women’s rights movement was like 50 years ago, these women are out celebrating themselves. There is even a Cameroon Women’s Day fabric each year. Tuesday afternoon Terry and I went to see if there was extra fabric from the outfit Emmarencia made for her for women’s day and with the fabric Emmarencia was able to make me a dress and Terry picked it up Wednesday at 9:30. She was quick. I had the blue and yellow women’s day fabric. With the Cameroon flag and other symbols and women’s day stuff. So today we went down to the soccer field, where a grand stand was apparently until last month. We got a ride into town with Sister Xaveria. We got to sit with the Division Officer and First Lady of Njinikom, as well as many other important people. All of the women from Njinikom and the surrounding areas came dressed in the Women’s Day fabric or in their women’s group fabric. There were many many different women’s groups and thousands of people showed up. There were speakers, performances of dancing and singing, skits and marches.  It was pretty amazing the amount of enthusiasm of the women. The big theme was stomping out hunger and poverty, getting equality for the women in the councils and government and whatever else.

We sat there from about 10 this morning until about 3 this afternoon and it was still going on when we left.  They cut a cake and as Kristen (the peace corps worker) asks Terry why nobody ever eats the cake Sister Xaveria hands us a piece. Basically you have to donate money to get a piece of cake and she had donated 10000 francs or 20 dollars. She handed me the cake piece and I hadn’t had a single drink since 9 am and so sitting in the sun made me a bit parched. I took a bite.. and couldn’t swallow it cause the cake was so so dry.  And at one point under our canopy they passed out “sack lunches,” I guess you’d call them, in little plastic bags. It contained a piece of fish, a piece of chicken, a sandwich (Terry said it had fish paste smashed in the middle of it), and two puff puffs (basically a little fried dough ball). I ate one dough ball and that’s all. I was not going to get sick off something like that…

Then they passed out cokes so we had coke, but it was warm of course(nothing is cold) and so warm pop just fizzes and foams in your mouth, by the time you swallow it, it just sits in your stomach and doesn’t feel so nice.

Then Sister Xaveria helped us sneak out and we walked home. My feet were disgusting.. and now I have a bad sunburn on my back (I even used sunscreen!).  Okay it wasn’t so bad cause now it’s the next morning as I’m writing this and it’s barely noticeable.

For dinner the housekeeper cook gal Prisca made spaghetti noodles with egg and vegetables. It was pretty dang good.  Jim and Terry introduced us to Johnny’s Salad Elegance seasoning. They put it on their spaghetti noodles when they have spaghetti and just sprinkle it on things like that for extra flavor, and always have so they brought it here. I’m going to have to remember it when we get back home.

More Updated Documents and Peace Corps Workers

Wednesday March 7th

I met Mac up at the HIV treatment center and he showed me how to update another one of their document lists. This one is of the mothers with HIV and new babies tracking a month or more after birth to check if they are HIV positive or not. So I typed up all the names, all the villages they are from and baby names and whether or not they were tested positive or not. This took me about 3 hours and then I just helped Lillian and Quinta with the patients folders. She also had me breaking pills and cutting them into 1/3 and 2/3 pieces. She made fun of me cause I made a couple fly across the room and asked “How do I make it so they don’t fly?” so she repeated it over and over and showed me to cup the pill in my hand while I cut. I mean these were crappy craft like scissors on a little pharmacy counting tray.

I came home around 3 pm which was late! I was at work longer than my dad and Jim and it was “Date Night” as Terry and Jim call it. We walked down to the Midway (2^nd story bar place) and got “Music” or Mutzic beer again. I did drink a whole one myself this time. We met Laura, Sal and Kristen, all American Peace Corps workers. Sal and Kristen are in their first year and they are here in Njinikom and Laura is on her second year, she is down in Belo (20 minute bike ride).  I could never be a Peace Corps worker. I can’t imagine living off such a small budget and being thrown into a part of a country alone like that. They each have their own little houses but houses means an African like house. We also had a Soya (that meat stuff on a stick, it’s really very small).  It's not actually monkey meat.. they've already eaten all the monkey's around so they are long gone.

On the walk to and from town  (probably  1 mile one way) there were kids out everywhere and they all saw my camera and all yelled hello and wanted to shake our hands and have their pictures taken. I got TONS of cute kid photos yesterday! It’s so easy to get them when it’s nice and light outside and they all want to be in the picture they stand nice and still. Hopefully I’ll be able to post them when I go and upload this blog.

Last night was Popcorn night also so Terry and Jim made popcorn (on the stove of course) for dinner. I had a small bowl of soup because I can’t eat much popcorn without a stomach ache.  We watched a couple of episodes of Friends (from Season 3 that Danny had given me before I left).

I guess I should describe things other than experiences since yesterday wasn’t too big.

The house we are in is a duplex with a lower and upper part. The lower part we haven’t gone in at all because we are staying with Jim and Terry upstairs in their house. It’s like a main living and dining room pretty large, with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (toilet and sink) and a shower room (because they don’t use shower curtains here so Jim and Terry re-designed parts of the house when it was being built their first few months here cause water would get all over everything). The kitchen is off to the side in another room. The 2^nd bedroom is where my dad and I are, but basically it’s a small bedroom you walk through to get to the actual bedroom. So I’m in the sort of small bedroom sitting room and my dad is in the back bedroom. It’s kind of annoying that he has to walk through mine into his cause he will walk in even after I JUST SAID 30 SECONDS EARLIER… “Dad I’m changing so wait just a minute.” It’s happened like 3 times already he starts coming in. The doors are huge and don’t close easily so only on the bathroom and shower do we ever shut them. There are curtains over every bedroom door though so we just use those. Helps with airflow at night too. So with the curtain closed all the way and I’m changing.. he just starts coming in. He never listens to me.  Thank god we have our own room ish things though. My bed is a little twin cot thing. It’s saggy but pretty comfortable, and the pillows are “ROCK PILLOWS” for sure. Just like these light weight hard stuffed things. So it’s okay with my little make-shift pillow in a pillow case. I’ve still slept well every night so far. And we wake up to the roosters around 5:15 ish and then the sun at 6:10 and that’s when all the people start coming out. The little house behind my window directly has tons of cute kids that you can hear as soon as the sun comes up I swear. Which is fine. I’ve been waking up about 5 (if we go to church at 6) and about 6 on other days, and bed by 8:30 or 9 every night basically. It’s dark and there is nothing to do by then. The hospital opens around 7:30.

We are on the hospital/convent grounds and it’s all fenced in with guards at the entrance and they walk back to us by the back gate. There are many different buildings for different parts of the hospital. Only two or three are 2 story, the rest are just one story. And everything you walk out to get to different rooms but there are covered walkways for the rains. There are people everywhere all the time though. There is everything from extra space for in-patients, private rooms, big wards for about 15 in patients, the lab, the maternity ward.. cookhouse, another doctors house/duplex, our house/duplex, and the convent with several buildings. Right outside is the private catholic school that Terry works at, run by the nuns as well. There is also an orphanage on the hospital grounds with a few kids. This place is in the mountains, the jungle mountain basically… so we are on the side of a hill, walking out the door of the duplex we are 2 stories up but as we walk along the balcony to the gate we are on the ground level.
This is the cookhouse and Dr. Eugene's half of his duplex and the cow pasture down below. This is the view off the balcony out the front door of our house. Gives you an idea of what dry season looks like in Njinikom, Cameroon. Very jungle-y and farmland-y and hill-y and mountain-y. 

One of the sisters has cows that supposedly when it’s not calving season (also one just died so the best milker is raising 2 calves) they have cheese that is supposedly very good that they make right here. Project Hope raises pigs down there also and sells the pork as a fundraiser.

We exchanged money right here with the hospital because they can then use the hundreds and bank them. So that was really easy.

The sisters have been so accommodating to Jim and Terry, they provided them with a TV and satellite tv a dvd player and set them up with internet in the home and almost anything they need.

Prisca is the housekeeper, she does our laundry and irons it (completely pressed and folded, including the underwear), does the grocery shopping (market shopping really), cleans and cooks dinner on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. This week Tuesday we went to the convent so she didn’t, and today is Women’s Day so she won’t be cooking dinner tonight I don’t think.

Monday was mashed potatoes made into large potato shaped things ha ha ha. And steamed vegetables put with tons of oil. Oh I did tell this somewhere..

Okay gotta get ready for women’s day.

Dinner at the Convent - March 6th

March 6^th

I finished updating the excel file of patients with HIV including all of the RIP and transfers that had been written all over the printed out old document. That took until about 10:30 am. I couldn’t find MacDonald to figure out what else he would like me to do so I helped Lillian and Quinta with finding the patients files on the shelves labeled by year. Inside the patients little booklet of medical history is their patient number written down.. NCH – 156 – 07 would mean I look under the year 2007 on the shelf then look for number 156. And that’s where the HIV medical history and prescription information is kept.

Nothing is private here, from bathing to men urinating on the side of the road to medical information and treatment. Anyone can be in the room and it’s not confidential at all. The HIV patients receive their prescriptions in the same little room (the size of like a Moses Lake Clinic exam room) and the door is open.  Lillian, Ajam and Quinta are all talking with patients at the same time in there, and Lillian is counting and cutting pills in half right there on the same table.

In the hospital there are posters for washing hands that read:

“Wash your hands before eating and after shitting.”

That’s just how it’s said here. Shitting.

Yesterday after I couldn’t find Mac I ate lunch with Terry, Jim and my dad (left over soup basically, chicken broth left over spaghetti noodles and vegetables from the two meals before).  Then I still couldn’t find Mac so I went walking with my camera, “strolling” as they call it here. One lady called up from the cook house below the walk way and said hello and asked how I was. I started walking down a little path towards the area and she called me down to see her. I took her picture, (I’ll try to post when I have internet that is good enough) and she told me she had just had twins and was staying in the cookhouse until she could pay the medical bill to leave. She took me over to see her babies so I took a picture of her babies with her mother, as well as another woman with her baby. There were so many people down there and they all wanted to see the photos after I took them. They really like to have their pictures taken! Especially the kids.  The woman who brought me down to the cook house was talking to me and reached up to get hair out of my face.

It’s such a different world. 

The afternoon was just kind of lazy, no internet either so we kind of just hung out. Terry plays a lot of spider solitaire on her computer.

We also went to the sisters for dinner, over at the convent. We walked in and greeted many of them and then they sang “Welcome To You” together and clapped. It was very cute. They fed us salad made of lettuce, carrots sliced onion and tomatoes; I stuck with the lettuce and carrots (which doesn’t follow the rules, “peel it, boil it…”). Well first Sister Relindus (from Austria but has been here since 1963) served us each some sort of vegetable like soup and then the salad and then there was chicken (on the bone but I ate it), potatoes (which were basically fries not fried up as much),  and some steamed and oiled vegetables (carrots green beens potatoes… basically what everything is). They also served us a roll cake thing at the end. And of course only the 4 of us, Sister Xaveria, and Relindus ate it, the rest ate other food.

Came back and went to bed.

I Became the Patient For a Few Minutes - March 4th

Sunday is the day of rest, so doctors don’t even do rounds on the patients, but Jim does anyways and they are used to him doing it by now.

So Sunday rounds Terry is Jim’s nurse so they invited me to come along as well for the time if I could handle it.

Now of course the people who stay overnight are in wards and all the men in one room, women in another, children in another. It’s just beds lined up along the walls, with about 2 feet in between each. The family is responsible for taking care of the food, bathing, taking them to the restroom or helping with bed pans for the patient. There is a cookhouse and a little canteen where food is available to buy or they can make food, as well as a small market on the grounds of the hospital.

We went through the hospital starting in the pediatrics. There were 3 children and babies, one girl had had heart surgery somewhere else and was here for I am not sure what but she is very very sleepy and can’t move very well on her own, she is 8. There were also two little girls with pneumonia, baby age. Very cute and afraid of Jim (mainly cause he is white).

Then we went to the mens ward with about 10 patients or more. Some very very sick, some less sick. One passed away last night (I’m not sure who). There were many with HIV and other various infections and diseases and a man with lung cancer. Of course they can’t do anything for someone with something like lung cancer here. Also one man was having a lot of pain in his back and was there to stay until he was better. I generally just stood around and talked to Terry while Jim and my dad talked about the patients and how to care and what to do with each patient.

At the very last patient in the mens ward it hit me really fast. Between an antibiotic on an empty stomach, jet lag and travelling anxiety, the heat, smells and the realization that I’m in Africa in a hospital looking at patients who are extremely ill and all of the standing in between patients I “krumped” as Terry called it. Within 15 seconds I went from fine to feeling like shaky to losing my vision and hearing. Somehow my dad and Terry and Jim walked me out of the ward and to the sidewalk outside where I had to lay down on the cement and recover. It was the exact same thing that happened when I got my yellow fever shot, I just almost passed out. I think it was just too much at once on an empty stomach.

So Terry and I came back to the house and about 12 we made lunch, eggs with potatoes and onions a couple pieces of bacon and some fruit.

In the afternoon we walked to the main street of Njinikom, passed homes and people and everything again. It was about a mile walk and we stopped to buy bottled water (for my dad and I, not sure if I want to drink the water here or not, Jim and Terry have always), spaghetti noodles and tomatoes. We also stopped for a beer at their favorite place where its on the second story so we can watch the people. The beer was 23 ounces and it costs 600 francs or $1.20. So can’t hardly afford not to drink! It was a warm german style lighter colored beer. Not bad. We watched the women prepare for Women’s Day Thursday all in their traditional outfits and all the many passerbys.

Basically anything goes here, people wear everything from Obama tee shirts to pokemon to fake name brands in the US, along with traditional clothing, very European style jeans. Men wear women’s clothing, women wear men’s clothing. They don’t really know that a blouse is gender specific. I mean everything you can imagine, fancy sparkles all day long, dirty old clothes.. you never know.

If you want to know more about the patients you can follow Jim and Terry’s blog, hakesincameroon.blogspot.com 

You Will Never Guess What I Ate Today - March 3rd

I may begin a new tradition in my blog.. typing my expectations and the actual events that go down.

My expectations: I figured it would be a dirt road for a good part of the drive. I expected way less people (which is very niave of me) and I also was thinking it would be flat and a little more dry looking. Also I expected to buy food on the drive for lunch (if I trusted it but I had my snackies just in case). I also expected it to be 8 hours.. ish. And fairly minimal traffic. Also animals, I expected to see many animals (like not Zebras and Elephants and Lions, but animals maybe like something more simple). Let’s see what else was what I was expecting…  I wasn’t expecting but 1 stop.. and one bathroom break.

OKAY the actual event of the drive:

We got into the car and put our suitcases in the back two seats so we could put the toilet paper we were picking up. SO WE LOADED the car with toilet paper. I mean the entire trunk stacked until behind the first row of back seat where we were sitting.

First of all it’s day time so Douala was A MESS. Absolutely crazy traffic and people.. people EVERYWHERE.. I’m not meaning people were out. I mean EVERYONE was out. Markets all the way down all of the streets and round a bouts with 30 cars within it and within 15 feet of the actual circle, plus another 20 mopeds and a semi or two going through.  Like 4 lane (okay exaggerated, maybe a 3 lane) round about.. not because it’s a huge round about.. because they decided to put a circular blockade in the middle of a street corner and everyone goes at the same time. In between every car and every miniscule  normal amount of space between cars was a moped or motorcycle thing.. with anywhere from 1 to 4 people on them. Oh and inbetween the motorcycles and cars and trucks there were people walking with baskets and sticks and products and beans and peanuts on their heads, in their hands in trailers and carts. Down the streets was the same deal.. when there was a break between markets.. maybe 10 blocks.. it was about 50 mph on the skinny road… with usually 3 lanes of cars on a 2 lane road. Dodging other cars.. passing at your own pace, even when other cars are coming, no we did not dodge motorcycles and people.. they dodge our van.. and our van dodged semi trucks and larger vans. In Africa, the biggest gets the right of way absolutely the opposite from the U.S. I mean people dodge motorcycles, motorcycles dodge cars, cars dodge vans, vans dodge semis.. and so on. Instead of using blinkers here we use horns, and instead of slowing down to allow someone out of the street we use horns to signal “GET OUT OF MY WAY.” Oh man it was beyond interesting and we had only been going 20 minutes.

We saw rows of lumber, then food, then furniture, and tables, and chairs and fruit and beans and bread and well just about a lot of millions of things along the roads of Douala. We stopped at a bakery and bought bread “to eat along the way” Rose had said. We went in and she picked up two things of President Cheese (like a spreadable little triangle circular thing I’ve seen them in the US) and 3 loaves of French bread. Also.. here was the interesting part.. SARDINES.. erg. So my dad and I glanced at each other like.. eww. It was only 8:00 at this point so we weren’t eating soon. We went on our way and got out of the city.. which meant not quite so crammed buildings but still people and cars everywhere but now not so jammed that we could go about 50 to 70 miles an hour depending on the town (really village of homes and markets) we passed through.. which was every 10 minutes still at this point. We stopped at a fruit stand and Rose and Aman bought papaya and some pineapples for us. The man peeled and sliced a fresh papaya for my dad and I to eat and when I asked what the funny green things were he said Avocado. So he also sliced us a piece of one of those. It was really yellow but very sweet and I started to feel a little off just in feeling unsure about everything we were doing and eating and the bumpy winding car ride. By now we had papaya, toilet paper, suitcases and pineapple in our car.

We continued on our way slowing down only to go over the massive or little or flattened or big or rough types of speed bumps at the entrance and exit of each village. Also stopping to pay “Tolls,” basically just people stopping people to pass for a price. Many many many children approached the cars at each of these to sell items. We bought fresh roasted peanuts at one place, they were really good. At one of them I woke my dad up in a hurry cause some kid was holding a weird rat like scaly looking armadillo shaped but very light brown colored and without the lines of the scales like an armadillo, weird looking animal with a REALLY LONG flat tail. Ew.

Oh then we stopped and I had to use the restroom of course but this was like totally just people roasting scary meat and who knows what.. but as soon as I asked Sister Rose decided she needed to go too. They charged us 100 Francs which is about 20 cents and it was a no toilet seat toilet and no flusher and a bucket of water with a rusty pale I’m pretty sure was to try to flush it… however I was not about to touch that. I didn’t even attempt to wash my hands in the sink. I used massive hand sanitizers after that. Oh and I brought my own tissues into the bathroom… not my little Charmin TP .. my dad handed me like kleenex’s which as you girls probably know just isn’t the same as good toilet paper so I was mad at myself for buying it and not using it yet.

At this place the driver bought fried plantain, but I didn’t feel like eating anything. We stopped only two hours again later and had lunch. We sat at a little picnic table outside some building and Rose asked us to buy a drink at least (well she payed for it). We got a grapefruit like soda that was extremely sweet. Then Rose opened the cans of sardines and the cheese and got a knife for the bread.. guess what! I ate it. I ATE SARDINES! I did pick out the spine cause that really grossed me out. But you cut the French bread in half, open a piece of cheese and smear it in, pile some sardines (piling being putting just a small small amount on for me) and then eating it like a sandwich. It was very interesting. Fishy, salty. But hrm I tried it before my dad did J. It was a very different experience. So we left there and drove on.

We stopped and got “bush” mushrooms, cause they were gathered from the bush not a nursery. And we stopped and bought MORE papaya, cause it was “from natural” so not a farm of papaya trees. So we had everything you could imagine in that van. Ha ha. We drove through the bigger town of Bamenda where my dad and I saw an albino person, and we got gas there and rode through to Njinikom.
Here is Sister Rose picking out the papaya on the side of the road. It comes in sizes small to large!

So in Njinikom we met with the Hake’s and put our stuff in the house and went to evening mass at the chapel on the hospital grounds. We walked around to see the different areas of the hospital and met many of the sisters. Then we came back and had delicious Wheat Berry Soup Terry had made (kind of like minestrone but with wheat berries not pasta and with some other spices). Then it was bed time. I fell asleep like before my head hit the pillow. I slept very well. 

The Airplane Travel - March 1st - March 2nd

OK so if you don’t have time to read all of this I get it.. but you have to scroll down to the “BEST PART OF MY STORY” at the very least J

Oh wow, where to begin.. okay how about how I’m writing these on Microsoft word and WHEN/IF internet is available.  We “have” internet from 9 to 7 Monday to Saturday, weather permitting, electricity permitting.. who knows what else affects it. So I’ll try! Also my computer most likely will not connect to the internet so we’ll have to log into their computers and do email and blogging.. so probably no skype..  who knows??  

Okay. So the real beginning.

Seattle to Detroit plane ride.. nothing too interesting but the flight attendants really liked me when I couldn’t decide on a snack between peanuts pretzels and cookies. The cookies were cinnamon biscoff cookies, and I have had them before so I got those after they already laughed at my decision making skills. So she gave my dad all three choices. Then the next attendant handed me three lime slices and told me to squeeze it on the top of the cookie and let it soak in because it tastes like Key Lime Pie. And it did!

One hour and 19 dollars for a sandwich and a salad to split later…  we get on the next flight.

Detroit to Paris –Charles Degual . 8 hour plane ride. We slept some.. they fed us dinner so our 19 dollar food was pointless, also fed us breakfast.. so you know I ate more than enough.. and it wasn’t bad other than plain yogurt which was nasty. Also I had wine with dinner.

In Paris obviously I posted.. and we brushed our teeth and washed up. It was about a 2 hour layover and we ate the sandwich we bought.

Paris to Douala. Getting on the plane was already a new culture, scrambling and getting in line rather than letting people ahead go. Then we got on a bus to go out to the plane but we sat in the bus for 30 minutes.. hot and sweaty. Then we got on the plane and our bus was the only one to get on. We waited for an hour and nobody else got on the plane! Probably only 50 of us were on the plane. So we were already delayed by an hour before the rest got on.

We talked to the man next to us for quite a while. He is a few years older than me I believe but he was a statistician and does financing for some bank in Paris. He has lived in Paris for 4 years and this is his first time back home in Douala since! He was very up-to-date on all sorts of US politics and news and asked us so many questions. My dad couldn’t stay awake so I had many conversations with him about various things from Africa to US to Paris to news and why statistics. It was kind of ironic cause he has a masters in statistics and does financial math and I told him I was going for a masters in statistics next year. He asked what focus and so I said biology. Then was talking about the usage of statistics for the distribution of the HIV medication and with the new malaria vaccination that is in the 4^th stage of pharmaceutical drug process stuff.

Anyways… the culture of the airplane was very different than any other plane ride. People were up talking and walking around and standing in the area where we could help ourselves to drinks. Two times I ended up with some man making fun of me and my inability to speak any language (French as they all spoke) and my white-ness. One man stopped me in the isle and said I cannot pass, another joked with me when trying to get our Malaron (spelling? Malaria pill) out of my bag. It was a comical ride and so much different culture. When we landed everybody clapped, then it was standing up and unbuckling and getting bags out.. barely after we had slowed enough to even be able to stand. We were told to sit back down and then people finally did sit but as soon as we had stopped it was everyone up and a rush toward the door. I mean no turns were taken what-so-ever to get off that plane!

HERE IS THE BEST PART OF MY STORY!!

Upon arrival in Cameroon (Douala airport) we were told of the crazy-ness of the airport. I mean they spot on defined it.

However!!!!!!!!!!!!! My aunt Marcia and uncle Dave over in Seattle had come to Douala a year ago for their exchange student’s wedding and was able to meet the family and see the city as well as make connections with Alexia (the exchange student)’s mother, Marcelline. SSOOOO Marcia asked Marcelline if she would be a contact for us just in case we need someone else who can take care of getting us help. She said she would meet us at the airport… so we were expecting maybe where we were meeting Sister Rose and the driver and that this would be perfect.

As we walked/hurried down the jet way I was only starting to think I needed to watch my bag.. literally one step off the jet way there was a sign” DR RICHARD HOURIGAN AND REILLY” I pointed excitedly wondering who they were because they were not Sister Rose (not wearing a habit and not the picture we saw). We were taken out of the line of people going to baggage claim. These two women were wearing green dresses (airport looking staff). They spoke not a word to us, took us down some back stairs onto the tar mat (sketchy dark 9:30 at night HOTTER THAN HELL), and pointed to a lone Lexus car to get in. So here we are hearts pounding that this really was okay.. and we are driven over to a VIP room where we met Marcelline! It was very iffy and nerve wracking. She spoke little English but good enough for me! She couldn’t understand as much as she could speak. She got a translator so we were able to talk for a bit. She works for the Mayor of Douala, and thus is a VIP obviously. We chatted and we gave her a gift from Marcia. She was very thankful and we took a picture with her, hopefully I can post it later.

Wow so we told her we needed to meet Sister Rose and get our baggage. So she took us up to the main area of the airport along with body guards and a line of them (like 5) across the main airport (granted this is like tile floor, small and very much not your typical airport) for us to walk through and out the other side. She kept speaking to each person we were stopped by to get to the baggage claim “VIP, (something in French), VIP” and we were able to walk right through with her holding my hand and telling us to stay in front of her and close the whole way. Inside of baggage claim she kept me and my MASSIVE bag in front of her and then she and I went over to another place where baggage was coming out (dumping, there were only 2 carousels and like a dumper.. it came up and dumped bags out basically). 

So we waited.. and waited… and waited.. sweating and trying to fan myself she gave me a fan and a tissue to use. My dad and I signaled across the room how many bags we had received. Two came to me and one to him. On the way out they chalked our bags.. who knows if they were actually supposed to check them or what.. but then many many people approached us trying to take our bags for us. Rose walked up and greeted us and both Rose and Marcelline were saying “no no no no no” and shaking their fingers at the men. We were taken behind a  like line thing and our driver  (Aman?? Spelling) helped us with our bags while Rose and Marcelline exchanged phone numbers. Definitely was comforting having someone who knew the culture and knew French to help us, and then to know that we had Rose who spoke English when we met her. WOW! So we climbed in the car with Rose and Aman and rode to the hospital/convent that we were staying in in Douala for the night.

END OF THE BEST PART (if you were only reading that part however the rest is fascinating too I promise.. well I hope at least)

Phew! So I have SO many things to tell and so few words/few amounts of internet!

Arriving at the hospital we parked, left our bags in the car and took just our back packs (which had the important stuff). We were fed rice with who knows what kind of meat, but it was delicious even though I was not even close to being hungry. Also delicious papaya! My dad and I shared a little room with two beds and a bathroom. I have some pictures I’ll try to post.. if not I’ll try to facebook post.. if not.. well. We’ll see.

So we tried to sleep.. I mean we didn’t get to bed til midnight.. and it was just SOO MUCH culture and tired/not tired feelings and anxious and nervous. We were up most of the night. I looked at the clock at 1:40 and then woke up at 4 am and that’s it if there was sleep.  At some point in the middle of the night I realized we had left my little purse like bag with all of our cookies and snacks from Marcia and our salad we hadn’t eaten on the last plane!! Too much commotion and rush. Oh well at least it didn’t have much in it that was important.. it would have been handy to carry around like a snack and water bottle though. Shoot. My dad even wrote his blog post from 4:15 to 5 cause he was not tired. I didn’t fall asleep and continued to stay awake until 6 when I got up and showered. We actually had a hot shower , so that was nice. We ate breakfast at 6:30 with the bus driver and met a priest who was there. We had pineapple, coffee (with powdered milk/cream not sure what it was and sugar cubes), and bread lots of fresh baked French bread with margarine that we did not actually eat because it expired a few months back.. so we weren’t sure on our first day in Africa. (wow still feels weird.. I’m in Africa)

 So about 7:30 we left the hospital and oh was the ride to Njinikom an interesting one.

March 5th - Project Hope

Hello everyone..

so this blog is out of order.. this is about my day today.

So today I started working with Project Hope, their primary job at the hospital is working with HIV patients and distributing the medications. I met Lillian (she is from Bamenda the bigger city near by here) and she was SO unbelievably informational and taught me all about the HIV medications and the availability. She explained all of the different types of medication the different groups and how different treatments use different groups and different medications in different groups. I can actually explain it all for real, just not in this post cause that's too much work. She told me all about the program and the childrens program Global Giving. The HIV medications are free for the patients, the government provides that. Which is amazing. Patients are given the appropriate medication based on the type of HIV, severity, other illnesses they have or are on treatment for and how they are responding to the current meds. Each month they must return to get the next months worth. This is a life-long treatment process so you can only imagine how many drugs are given out.
They were out of medications for 3 weeks and just got them last week so they had 750 patients come to pick up their month supply and generally in one month they have 1000 total. So that was a hectic week for them.
Lillian told me about the culture of how talking about sex is not common and people deny that they have so when they are diagnosed with HIV they blame it on witch craft and that somebody has cursed them out of jealousy. It's really sad, but very interesting. The patients are responsible for returning to pick up their meds, and taking them daily or twice daily at the right time. So of course many stray from the schedule or stop taking and return only months down the road.
Gosh it's just such a different world.

so I'm working on updating their excel spreadsheet (that hasn't been updated since september 2010) that contains every new patient added to the list in their program. Then from that I'll update the list of babies who's parents are HIV positive and are working in the program to prevent the transmission to their child. After updating I'll work with MacDonald (who's 2 siblings live in the U.S., I'm not sure where in Cameroon they are from though) in order to find out as much information and use the excel spreadsheet to track the patients health and prescriptions.

Everything is done in paper. so even the patients (all patients) have a notebook they are supposed to keep and take with them to the doctor. This is called their "medical records/history". and many return to this hospital but some come from others, some of the books are updated some are not.. and the patients and families are required to pay before they are allowed to leave. I have more on this in another blog. I'll post as soon as I can.

Miss you all!

ps i'm totally adjsuted to the time zone. bed at 9 up at 5 (today) with the roosters, and with the sun by 6. It's how it works. also i'm doing just fine health wise.. weather is fantastic here. No stomach issues yet (knock on wood)..