4 more things you don’t expect to hear on a bus
on Notes from Quite Far (Cameroon), 07/May/2009 11:28, 34 days ago
1. "Would it be ok if I put my chicken under your seat?"2. "Excuse me, I think you might be sitting on my gun"3. "Is that rain on the window? Or just sheep piss?"4. "Driver! Stop! My millet’s fallen off the roof"Yet again, my apologies. It’s been a while I know. I’d like to say I’ve been too busy living life to waste time in front of a computer screen. It’s true that I’ve been busy, but have in fact very much missed sitting in front of a computer screen, and have found living life to be somewhat overrated. It probably worksout 10% interesting stuff, 40% waiting for the interesting stuff, 20% going to and from places, and 30% washing. It’s only when I’ve managed to condense my week into a paragraph that I realise it was actually good. (Can one live vicariously through one’s own blog?)The long-awaited rain has arrived, and it’s brought with it a welcome freshness after an oppressively hot couple of months.It’s also brought mosquitoes, stormy weather, and some prolonged interruptions to electricity and water supplies. These go some way towards explaining my lack of news these past few weeks. A combination of patchy electricity, holidays spent travelling the country, and actually doing some work, havestood between me and my blog.The electricity powers the water pumps, so when that goes the water goes too. In towns like Kaele, where there is never running water, life goes on as normal. But in towns like Yagoua, there are huge queues at all the wells, bottled water is sold out, and nobody talks about anything else. Interestingly, according to my local shopkeeper, the electricity used to be cheaper and more reliable a few years back, and maintenance staff were better qualified and better paid, but since it was taken over by an American company, the service has got a lot worse. (This is an apolitical blog. I’m just saying what he said.)The holidays were good. My travelling companion was Gareth, who came to spend a couple of weeks, and who intends to write a blog "guest" entry and post some of the cracking pictures he took. I’ll therefore not write too much about all that, except to say I met a number of policemen, swam in the sea, travelled in a chocolate-coated taxi, and saw some truly beautiful scenery. And if it wasn’t for the myriad reasons why Cameroon can be a tricky place to spend your holidays, it could bea real tourist hotspot. Gareth’s parting gift to me was a modem that connects me to the internet via the mobile phone network. This means I don’t have to travel 4 hours to Maroua to get online, and I am in fact posting this blog to you from my house in Yagoua. Top gift. Thanks Gareth.As for work, well, first and foremost I have a massive thank you to extend to the Rotary Club of Yorkshire and Holderness, who have donated 5 very smart reconditioned laptops to the ENIEG. What was once a classroom for first year students is now functioning as an IT room, with 4 newly-installed plug sockets and 8 computers. Everyone is delighted with this, of course. Many of our students, and even some staff, had never used a computer before this year. The director is drafting a schedule for me to train up the ENIEG professors in IT basics this month, while the students are away doing exams.Still on the subject of work, on Monday I was awarded the rather lofty title of President of the English Oral Examination Committee for the teacher training college. I have no idea what this means, or how it came about, only that it was announced at a meeting and a couple of people have since congratulated me. We had to examine the oral English skills of about 120 students in the space of 2 days. There were 4 of us working as 2 pairs. Students would come in, talk to us in English, and when they left we gave them a mark out of 10. Beats all that GCSE moderation nonsense I used to have to do in England. (Grading criteria? What are they?)There was also a ceremony in honour of the director, in which people make speeches praising him, chip in for a present, then line up to shake his hand and say something nice. If I ever get to be a headteacher I think I’ll introduce this idea in my school. Any headteachers reading this might also like to give it a go. I'm sure it would go down well with Ofsted.In addition to my work at the ENIEG, I recently did some training on lesson planning for experienced teachers in Maga– almost all of them far more experienced than myself in fact. Obviously my own training and notions of teaching are different from theirs in many ways, and I’ve never had to face the same challenges they do, on the low pay they earn. Frankly I was expecting it to be difficult. But they were extremely friendly, motivated, and open to ideas from myself and each other. It would probably be more difficult doing the same training back in England! At any rate, I really enjoyed it and I’m hoping to do some similar training next year.Otherwise, not much to relate that I can think of. The school year is winding down. There should be a ceremony soon to open the new IT room, and another one to mark the end of exams. Then I'll be home to spend a month or two enjoying what I hope will be mild weather, and drinking fresh milk. Looking forward to seeing you all!