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Our first trip in Cameroon

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 We finally got a chance to travel a little and see some more of the country!  We got a full week off for Easter so we took advantage! Travel in Cameroon is definitely a challenge.  Remember back when there was no internet and you had to figure things out by calling?  Well, Cameroon is still living in that time period.  Except you can add that Cameroonians seem to not like answering the phone much.  Christophe called a few hotels at least 20 times over a few days before someone answered and took our reservation! Transportation is another adventure here.  In Tanzania, you always knew if you wanted a decent bus, you could go to the one good agency and buy a ticket.  Well, for some reason, that bus line doesn't exist here.  In fact, they don't even have the terrible bus line that you could go to!  No, to go to a certain city, you need to know someone who has gone to that city and can tell you which bus line goes there.  Eve...
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Handball

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I got so lucky and just as I was arriving, they were deciding to set up a women's handball team for the staff.  So of course I volunteered! It has been the most amazing anti-stressor and a wonderful way to be embedded in and learn Cameroonian culture.  And I get to know all the wonderful women who work here! The original desire to set up the team was that a match had already been scheduled, so we needed a team to play it.  (This seems very much in line with my understanding of Cameroonian culture).  So they dragged in a collection of women from the staff representing a range of ages, fitness levels and experience with the game (I personally didn't know any more than it is a game sort of resembling football).  We just get thrown into the students practice, sharing a coach and trying not to get run over by girls half our age. A week after our first practice, we had our first match.  It was quite a lesson in Cameroonian culture.   Part 1:We showed up...
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Settling in

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 After a few weeks in Cameroon, things are starting to settle.  The first week or two was a huge physical shock with the heat, noise and intensity.  But we are starting to adjust and feel a little more at home here now.  I have started teaching, and it is going pretty well so far.  My classes are even bigger than they were in Tanzania (over 100 students) so it is a challenge to create a lesson plan that works and keeps everyone engaged.  From my initial classes and exercises, I can already see that they have a much higher level of writing and reading than speaking and hearing.  (There is a culture of lectures and exams, but not much interaction).  I'm really hoping to work on that, but it is going to be quite a challenge with 100 students in a class!  I also started my data science classes.  These are much smaller, which I appreciate, but there I have a new challenge: I teach in French! So this immersion thing is really happ...
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Off on a new adventure

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The last few months have been a whirlwind: getting the option to move to Cameroon and then all the stuff that was needed to get us here, in addition to the holiday season.  The day we left Germany, I told Christophe that I thought it hadn't hit me yet that I was leaving.  I was running on fumes trying to get everything done and never really had a moment to reflect and process what I was doing. 10 years ago I was in this exact same situation, finishing my PhD and heading off to Germany.  I ended up staying way longer than I expected - the longest I have ever lived somewhere in my life.  I went for a job, but stayed because I found lots of new friends and I loved getting a chance to visit so many places in Europe. (Including the newly renovated Notre Dame de Paris right when it reopened). Last week we arrived in Cameroon to start our new life in Yaoundé.  We are serving as volunteers on the VSI program run by the French government and sent by the DCC . ...
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