Title: Mischa in Cameroon (
Cameroon)
Status: Active
URL:
http://mischaincameroon.blogspot.com/
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One last post - 14/Jun/2011 14:06 - 4923 days ago
To marketI’ve been back in England for almost a week. I’ve enjoyed the drizzle. I’m looking for a job. I can now just abou...
Saying goodbye in Maga, and trying to jettison thirty kilos of food without hurting anyone's feelings - 07/Jun/2011 09:16 - 4930 days ago
My favourite goodbye present from Maga was actually the first I was given. We’ve been struggling to get the mothers’ group i...
One final Maga adventure - 31/May/2011 08:41 - 4937 days ago
This blogpost was going to be about saying goodbye to Maga (which I did yesterday), but then last Wednesday I had a crazy advent...
Birth certificates (again) - 24/May/2011 17:01 - 4944 days ago
In between chasing chickens, sewing quilts and hauling water I have actually been quite busy working recently. I’ve been colla...
In search of water - 14/May/2011 11:20 - 4954 days ago
It’s impossible to describe how good the first rainfall feels after two months of near paralysing heat. The temperature drops ...
My Maga quilt - 08/May/2011 16:01 - 4960 days ago
The very beginning...The finished article! Maga, for all its good qualities, is not a party town. If you don’t fanc...
Are young people as apathetic as everyone thinks they are? - 29/Apr/2011 16:55 - 4969 days ago
Training up some of the lycee students in Maga to go out into the village and do community sensitisation on the importance of pr...
From mud to a classroom - 29/Apr/2011 16:36 - 4969 days ago
This is the new classroom at the school at Malka (there are currently two permanent classrooms without roofs and two classrooms ...
Confronting the exotic local wildlife: hippos, elephants and chickens - 17/Apr/2011 18:01 - 4981 days ago
Hippos chilling out in lake Maga (thanks to Joost for the photo)While thePrefetwas concerned about evil sorcerers in his speech ...
Dining out in Maga: leaves, bats, Prefets, and whisky - 10/Apr/2011 16:54 - 4988 days ago
One of the joys (and complications) of being a European woman in Maga is that I don’t quite fit anywhere in the normally rigid...
I want to go to school to buy a car, wear high heels, be a journalist, be a soldier.... But if I can't, at least I can watch the television all day! - 26/Mar/2011 16:46 - 5003 days ago
We've just run a competition for the students from our schools, asking them to design posters on the importance of education. We...
Women: unavoidable development partners - 12/Mar/2011 13:28 - 5017 days ago
Tuesday the 8thMarch was international women’s day, and along with all the other women in Cameroon who can afford the material...
Four weeks, four hospitals: my medical tour of Cameroon - 06/Mar/2011 18:19 - 5023 days ago
Apart from onebout of malariaI’ve been extremely healthy since coming to Cameroon, but my run of luck failed last month. Durin...
Not quite on the brink of revolution - 27/Feb/2011 17:16 - 5030 days ago
Some people have been asking me if we’ve seen any knock on effects from the protests happening in the Arab world in Cameroon. ...
Use a textbook, go to prison - 21/Feb/2011 21:51 - 5036 days ago
Go into any of the schools I work with, and you’ll notice that there is a chronic shortage of textbooks. Sometimes the teacher...
The new Mischa in Maga - 15/Feb/2011 16:10 - 5042 days ago
The past week in Maga has been tough by any standards: there was the humiliation of being dragged up to dance solo in front of s...
Child labour- the way forward for our schools? - 04/Feb/2011 15:45 - 5053 days ago
Children in the rice fields at SirlaweA few days ago I found myself nodding enthusiastically at a meeting as parents and teacher...
Disappearing money and zombie school girls - 23/Jan/2011 15:48 - 5065 days ago
There are few areas in which Cameroon excels on the international stage. One of these used to be football, but judging by their ...
Do I really want one hundred mothers in law? - 14/Jan/2011 14:43 - 5074 days ago
In Cameroon the family is incredibly important, providing support services, a cultural identity, and a social network. It can al...
Commercialism, food and religion; Christmas in Cameroon - 27/Dec/2010 09:12 - 5092 days ago
I'm currently spending my Christmas holidays in the South of Cameroon, splitting my time between volunteer and Cameroonian frien...
Feeling integrated: being the white girl in the village - 16/Dec/2010 10:14 - 5103 days ago
A few weeks ago I was at an in-service teacher training day for the teachers from my zone. When my national volunteer and I arri...
Learning IT - 16/Dec/2010 10:10 - 5103 days ago
We borrowed some laptops from RESAEC, a local NGO, to teach some basic IT skills to the teachers and students in Maga. IT is on ...
Can you cure AIDS with cows? Or cholera with alcohol? - 05/Dec/2010 08:47 - 5114 days ago
The first girl with her parents: note that as agood Cameroonian daughter she's taken hershoes off to speak to her fatherWednesda...
The problem with poo - 25/Nov/2010 11:34 - 5124 days ago
Last week I was invited to a three-day workshop on‘assainissement’ in communities at the Sous-Prefecture in Maga. It was a F...
The REALLY BIG snake in my house - 10/Nov/2010 07:45 - 5139 days ago
The scene of entry!One Monday morning I was going outside into my courtyard to brush my hair when I saw a large snake, about two...
The cholera witches, the brain in the box, the cursed owl in the latrine and the evil spirit down the well - 05/Nov/2010 09:51 - 5144 days ago
One morning soon after I first arrived in Maga in 2009 I was cycling through the bush with my national volunteer, Tchipounama, o...
My new role as a Cameroonian agony aunt - 18/Oct/2010 09:37 - 5162 days ago
In last June’s BPC exam for Cameroonian lycée students (the rough equivalent of the GCSE in the UK) one of the essay question...
Ugly fabric, stilted slogans, and a haphazard parade- it could only be a Cameroonian fete… - 17/Oct/2010 08:56 - 5163 days ago
The first of two crucial mistakes I made at the fete for international teachers day on the 5thOctober was turning up half an hou...
Repairing the school at Malka (a very encouraging story from Cameroon) - 30/Sep/2010 17:49 - 5180 days ago
The primary school in the tiny hamlet of Malka has two classrooms, three rickety desks, one trained teacher sent by the State, t...
A busy week in Maga.... - 30/Sep/2010 16:14 - 5180 days ago
This was my plan for last week:Monday:Meet the new volunteers, take them on a tour round Maroua, answer their questions about th...
Back in Maga, the bad news and the good new - 21/Sep/2010 07:47 - 5189 days ago
The bad newsThe junction between my street and the main roadThe rains in Magawere terrible this year, much worse than usua...
Armed horsemen and magic crabs - 21/Sep/2010 07:06 - 5189 days ago
Because the road to Maga was still flooded out when we arrived in Maroua we spent a week doing some touristy things in the Extre...
Broken bridges and drowsing drivers: welcome back to Cameroon - 08/Sep/2010 13:08 - 5202 days ago
Our journey as far as the city of Ngoundere in central Cameroon was fairly smooth, with only minor blips of faulty cargo unloadi...
Some things I will miss about England - 04/Sep/2010 16:57 - 5206 days ago
As I get ready to go back to Cameroon tomorrow, a few things I will miss about England...I'm planning on being back next June, b...
The dead school council and the disappearing school fees - 24/Aug/2010 11:12 - 5217 days ago
Before I left Cameroon for the summer three out of the four schools I work with had writtenschool development‘action plans’f...
La sobre et la sotte (the wise girl and her idiot sister) - 11/Aug/2010 12:11 - 5230 days ago
“My sister’s coming to visit me in Cameroon in September” I told the Sultan of Pouss in June.“Excellent,” he replied. ...
La sobre et la sotte (the story) - 11/Aug/2010 11:20 - 5230 days ago
ReadLa sobre et la sotte (the introduction)This story takes place in a small forest in a small village in West Africa. In this c...
Supporting disabilities - focussing on abilities (to the extent of letting me play the tambourine...) - 04/Aug/2010 19:47 - 5237 days ago
Today I played with glitter glue, got nuzzled by a couple of people, participated in a workshop on behaviour management during a...
Storms in Pouss - 27/Jul/2010 20:57 - 5245 days ago
My thoughts over the past few days have been with everyone in Maga and Pouss, the two villages where I’ve been working in Came...
Why World Food Programme food isn’t getting to school children, and why I’ve decided not to complain - 21/Jul/2010 13:42 - 5251 days ago
I have used no names in this blog post because I have promised not to. My promise was made to the people who fear (with justific...
What to do with a pair of trousers and a couple of bibles - 09/Jul/2010 13:31 - 5263 days ago
Like me the explorer Mary Kingsley came from Islington in North London. She spent her twenties looking after her invalid parents...
No tarantulas and Marks and Spencer's - 24/Jun/2010 11:25 - 5278 days ago
The rainy season has come to Maga. The electricity and water are cut, the streets are becoming impassable because of the mud, an...
Dinosaurs, pizza and renaissance art: the Maga perspective - 18/Jun/2010 06:10 - 5284 days ago
One of my best friends in Maga is Akilo the baker, who works in his brother’s bakery from about five am to ten am each day, an...
Malaria and the hospital at Maga - 09/Jun/2010 15:30 - 5293 days ago
Maga is famous in the Extreme North for its artificial lake and the things that accompany it: the fish, the rice (irrigated by i...
En terrain - 09/Jun/2010 15:11 - 5293 days ago
A planning meeting for next year with the women of Sirlawe, one of the small schools we work with in the bush (you can see the s...
Why Cameroonians prefer lesbian to gay marriage - 29/May/2010 10:10 - 5304 days ago
If you ask a girl at one of my primary schools what chores she does every day she will tell you she: cooks meals, washes the dis...
One of the best places in Maga - 28/May/2010 20:13 - 5305 days ago
This is the Sultan's mango grove which at the moment is full of mangos as big as my head which I'm encouraged to eat as many ...
Watching the general election from Cameroon (no, I didn't vote for Barack Obama) - 18/May/2010 09:46 - 5315 days ago
I was in Maga without internet for the two weeks on either side of the UK General Elections, so I was reliant on three alternati...
What does a Cameroonian transport breakdown look like? - 17/May/2010 19:58 - 5316 days ago
This is my bus when the axel broke in the middle of nowhere (even though we were on the only stretch of tarmac between Maga and ...
My new bedroom - 17/May/2010 19:47 - 5316 days ago
It's too hot to sleep in the house at the moment, so this is where I've been sleeping for the past couple of months. Normally it...
Traditional tales from the children of Maga - 30/Apr/2010 07:29 - 5333 days ago
We had a traditional story telling competition for the children at our schools in Maga- the children were told to ask someone in...
How the fourth most important man in Cameroon came to lunch at my house - 23/Apr/2010 20:00 - 5340 days ago
Last Monday Luc Ayang, who is the fourth ranking Minister in Cameroon, the President of the Council for Economic and Social aff...
A typical Maga marriage proposal - 07/Apr/2010 19:33 - 5356 days ago
Yesterday evening I was sitting chatting in my tailor’s hut next to the market, where she and two other women have their pedal...
Hippos of Maga - 07/Apr/2010 19:28 - 5356 days ago
These are some of the hippos that live in the lake at Maga (thanks to Greg for the photo). Normally they stay in the water and o...
Bandits and poisoned arrows - 31/Mar/2010 21:23 - 5363 days ago
Last week I cycled for forty minutes through a Saharan dust storm for a meeting with the women at one of my village schools, and...
The lions of Cameroon - 31/Mar/2010 21:10 - 5363 days ago
These are the kids who play football most evenings outside the gate of my compound, at least until their ball gets too deflated,...
Ready to be a rice grower - 31/Mar/2010 20:55 - 5363 days ago
My lovely boss, the Inspector of primary education in the Maga arrondissement, decided to better equip me for my trips in the bu...
Some things that seemed really, really normal to me last week (just to show how acclimatised I am after over six months here…) - 17/Mar/2010 06:05 - 5377 days ago
I think 40 degrees Celsius is cold weather.I found out that the reason the parents at one of the schools I work with at Maga don...
Enduring, purebred, and perfectionist: the women of Cameroon! - 10/Mar/2010 08:46 - 5384 days ago
International Women’s Day on the 8thMarch is a very big deal in Cameroon, although several men mentioned to me that they thoug...
Forced marriage - 10/Mar/2010 08:44 - 5384 days ago
We had a landmark meeting in one of my primary schools where we brought fathers, mothers, children and teachers together to disc...
Some happier stories from Cameroon - 27/Feb/2010 13:08 - 5395 days ago
Friday 18thFebruary was the International Day of Maternal Languages. Cameroon has two official languages, French and English (al...
HIV/AIDS testing in Maga - 12/Feb/2010 11:13 - 5410 days ago
Last Thursday was the Fete de Jeunesse (Youth Day) in Cameroon, a huge occasion with dance displays, processions, parties, and...
Some sad stories from Cameroon - 12/Feb/2010 11:07 - 5410 days ago
Last week a little girl of about nine or ten, who is a student in one of the little village schools I worked with at Simatou, go...
Painting the palace - 31/Jan/2010 08:00 - 5422 days ago
Last week I was at Pouss visiting some schools during the annual painting of the Chefferie. A lot of Mousgoum houses are painted...
Just another morning in Cameroon... - 31/Jan/2010 07:54 - 5422 days ago
Yesterday we had a big conference in Maroua for women from all the mothers’ associations that VSO works with in the Extreme No...
The problem with birth certificates - 16/Jan/2010 10:43 - 5437 days ago
To receive a qualification at the end of primary school in Cameroon, or do to the entrance exams for secondary school, or to hav...
Mousgoum houses and Mount Cameroon - 16/Jan/2010 09:36 - 5437 days ago
The top of Mount Cameroon, the second highest mountain in Africa. It's an active volcano. There was a lot of ash. Traditional ...
A little bit about religion - 05/Jan/2010 10:35 - 5448 days ago
In the Royal Palace at Foumban, in the West of Cameroon where I spent part of the Christmas holidays, my guide was explaining to...
Working with the disabled - 16/Dec/2009 14:03 - 5468 days ago
This is Ayissi. He's the best student in the top class of his primary school in the village of Simatou, but at the moment will n...
Being a cow without milk - 16/Dec/2009 13:59 - 5468 days ago
I was talking to an elderly man who was visiting my compound in Maga about my work the other day and he asked me which groups or...
Sex Education in Cameroon - 04/Dec/2009 14:09 - 5480 days ago
When I agreed to oversee arrangements for the Global Day for HIV/AIDS awareness on the first of December in Maga I originally im...
The Palace at Pouss - 04/Dec/2009 13:41 - 5480 days ago
These are some of the horsemen with swords who led the Sultan's procession at Pouss. Several people have suggested I learn to ri...
Killing sheep with the Sultan - 04/Dec/2009 13:22 - 5480 days ago
The 28thNovember was the Islamic Fete du Mouton, or Eid Ul Adha, where Muslims kill and eat lots of meat, especially mutton, to ...
The sorcerer of Manguirla - 21/Nov/2009 06:58 - 5493 days ago
This is the sorcerer for the small village of Manguirla in the hills near the Nigerian border. He used his magic pebbles to tell...
Maga's mothers' association - 21/Nov/2009 06:50 - 5493 days ago
This is the committee for our newly created mothers' association at Maga. Creating a committee can be a bit difficult, as there...
What exactly am I up to? - 21/Nov/2009 06:42 - 5493 days ago
I normally get up just before six, which is late by local standards, as most people are up for the first prayer of the day at ab...
Cooking - 09/Nov/2009 10:36 - 5505 days ago
This is my national volunteer, Tchipounama, (on the left) at her house where she's teaching me to make spaghetti and we're hangi...
Working with schools - 09/Nov/2009 10:24 - 5505 days ago
I'm here working with five primary schools in the Maga region, three in tiny villages out in the bush, about half an hours cycle...
Untitled - 21/Oct/2009 07:43 - 5524 days ago
My house in Maga. I live in about three quarters of the round bit and the Sultan's reception room is in the rectangular bit. The...
Meeting the neighbours - 20/Oct/2009 11:26 - 5525 days ago
I’ve been settling in to life in Maga and doing the rounds of various schools, offices, hospitals, and neighbours as I try to ...
My feet for Ramadan and the primary school at Simatou - 02/Oct/2009 09:10 - 5543 days ago
My feet for the end of RamadanAll the women had this done to their feet for the end of Ramadan. My neighbours helped me do mine ...
Crossing the street in Maga (not as easy as it sounds...) - 27/Sep/2009 11:30 - 5548 days ago
I've only really done this during the day. I’ve done it at night a couple of times at night (after 6pm), but only with a neigh...
My new home - 10/Sep/2009 18:56 - 5565 days ago
I'm moving into my new home in the chief's house in Maga on Saturday. I think he lives in the next door village called Pouss mos...
Untitled - 04/Sep/2009 13:41 - 5571 days ago
I've just spent a week in Cameroon's capital, Yaoude. We've been having in country training at VSO Cameroon, and have been very ...
Going to Cameroon with VSO - 19/Aug/2009 20:23 - 5587 days ago
As I’m sure most of you already know I’m leaving England at the end of August to go and live in Cameroon for a year. I’ve ...
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