three days of orienting

Our group just finished our three-day orientation in Yaounde and we wrapped it up with a nice dinner with embassy staff. Meera leaves right away, heading to Bertoua in the East province bright & early tomorrow. To bid her farewell properly, we are attempting to wake up at the crack of dawn and have breakfast at a nice place in Bastos. I realized how much the ETA program has improved since last year in terms of training, preparation, materials and giving us a scope of the program. After all, last year Fulbright sent its first batch of guinea pigs to Cameroon. I feel much more confident now than when I first arrived, and a lot of the credit is owed to last year's ETAs who've forged the road and made the path easier for us.

Jen, our English teaching trainer has been wonderful in providing us with classroom activities and innovative ways to make the most of a resource-scarce classroom. We met with CAMELTA teachers (Cameroon English Language & Literaure Teachers Association) who offered advice about the challenges of a typical Cameroonian classroom and also had presentations on Cameroon culture and school systems. It's nice that we can slowly get acquainted with Cameroon and still have the support, logistics & answers from the embassy before we dive right in. Mignon, the Cultural Affairs Officer has been awesome about visas, cellphones, lost ATM cards etc. Looming questions I've had since forever are getting answered and the picture of Bambili is finally becoming more clear. On Tuesday we had conference call with our university sponsors and I got to put the pieces together of what I'll be doing, what subjects I'll co-teach, class size and living situation. Apparently I'll be sharing an apartment with a Peace Corps woman in her 50s! I will need to buy my own bed since it's unfurnished, but I'm excited to hear her story.

I'm over jet lag, but Cameroon is about 7 hours ahead of Chicago....so more later. Bon nuit.