#11 19 Aug 1995 Dear Everyone: All of the volunteers who are training at GTHS, with the exception of Janice, will be teaching either Math, Chemistry, Biology, or Physics, under the direction of Dr. Sammy Enyong, an assistant director for the PC in Cameroon. [He of the Sorbonne. GK] The PC headquarters in Cameroon are in Yaounde, about 5 hours from Buea. On occasion over the two eyars, we will be traipsing into Yaounde for additional training, medical aid, etc. Anyway, Dr. Enyong has not yet announced any postings besides mine and that of another trainee, Prabasaj Paul, who just received his doctorate in Physics and will also be teaching at the University of Buea. It is likely that one of the trainees will be chosen to replace the PCV here. If so that trainee will have a very easy time moving into post, because he or she will simply move into the retiring PCV's house, which is about a mile from here. This week was supposedly a normal week of schook, but it was punctuated by a national holiday on Tuesday, which was Assumption Day. I knew there was some holiday but was unaware of exactly what the holiday was, so I asked in one of my classes. A student responded to my question by asking whether I was a Christian (a question which I find overly blunt, but which apparently to a Cameroonian is not, as I have had a number of Cameroonians ask me that question in a very matter of fact way.) Once he stated that the holiday was Assumption Day, I responded that I knew the meaning of the holiday, but that in the United States there was no such holiday and that as far as I knew, it was most often celebrated by Catholics in the United States. The end of the week marked the end of the first "unit" in holiday school, and all the trainees get new assignments beginning Monday. That means I will be teaching Form IV Physics, and Janice will be teaching the biological bases of nutrition. Janice continues to be intimidated by the teaching she has to do, partly because her background is so weak in the areas she has been asked to teach, a situation unique to her among the trainees here. The prospect of teaching the class a few days from now seems overwhelming to her, but she is always able to teach the class for the day. I hope that her actual assignment at post is less daunting. In the past unit Janice and I, along with two other trainees, taught various subjects to the same class during different periods, and we soon realized that we had the most rambunctious class among the nine classes. Of course this added to Janice's stress. Although I found that class (Form III Physics) bothersome at times, I thoroughly enjoyed the Upper Sixth Calculus Class. The PC trainee who directs my training in math said wistfully that he wished I could continue to teach this class, because he had gotten feedback from the students that they were eager to have me stay with them. I am not sure how he is getting this feedback, but I think it may be through oen of the other trainer's nephews, who is in the class. Twice last week I stayed after class at the end of school to answer some of their questions, some of them related to other mathematics that they were studying. They asked me whether I could help find someone to advise a math club which meets after school during the regular school year at CCAS, the location of the holiday school. This was probably a subtle invitation to me, but I pointed out that I would be in Buea, about 90 minutes away and too far to travely easily. I suggested that if the PCV at GTHS were replaces, that person would most likely be interested in advising the club and that I would try to help make the arrangements. The assignments for each of the three "units" of holiday school change for the trainees so that they can get a variety of experiences during their initial training as teachers. For me the main point of the exercise is to obtain a better understanding of the Cameroonian classroom. Perhaps next week, when Dr. Enyong comes here and makes the assignments, I will find out whether I will have a secondary assignment teaching Sixth Form Mathematics, as I have requested. This would substantially increase my understanding of the Cameroon's system of Secondary Education. During our technical training this week there was a good deal of friction between the trainers and the trainees as our very different philosophies of education collided. I am sure I will say more about this later, but the difference already seems quite clear. Here the system is highly centralized, with the Minister of Education determining the details of school policy for the whole country, details including the content of the syllabus for each course, the textbooks for each course, and the locationof the teaching assignment for each teacher. In general, teachers are given assignment without regard to where they live. Cameroonians justify this by saying that this makes the teachers much less susceptible to bribes and favoritism. As far as I can tell, this is a real and substantial problem, that parents frequently bribe teachers so that their children can pass courses or the national exams. At the same time, the system is apparently driven by the national exams I mentioned last week [letter #10. gk], exams that are absolute bars to continuation after Fifth Form and after Upper Sixth Form. I believe that these exams screen out at least 50% of the students. Thus there is a great deal of "teaching to the exams." On top of that, Cameroon has inherited a British view of grading which seeks to objectify as much as possible the grading of exams. In practice, this means constructing questions that can be dissected into various parts, each of which is either right or wrong. This in turn leads to quite low scores on exams and to the absence of the "curve." In this approach, any student scoring below 50%, (and it is easy to do so in this system) fails the course or examination, without regard to how many students fail. I am stating this all rather harshly, but I think it more than debateable [sic] whether the American way is any better. Nevertheless, this strong difference in grading philosophy led to some very heated debated, with Cameroonians on one side and Americans on the other. I think I mentioned last week that we have not received any mail for three weeks, because of our move to Kumba. I anticipate that we will receive mail routed through Ngaoundere on Tuesday and perhaps mail routed through Yaounde as well. In any case, I expect Dr. Enyong to bring us mail from Yaounde on Friday. Thus, we may be very slow in answering questions various people ask us. Of course, by the time we answer them, the questios may be forgotten. Edwin P.S. I know you are having a hot summer. We are not. Although somewhat hotter here than in Ngoundere, it has been qutie pleasant. We occaisonally see Mt Cameroon, which is about 35 miles away. Yesterday we think we saw snow near the top. [at the end of the letter, Mom wrote to the 3 kids. select parts reproduced here for you]: I have chided Dad for portraying me as being totally miserable here. There are definitely swing each day in moods. Having a good experience in front of a class is an upper... For stress-relievers we taxi in to Kumba for a meal and wander the streeets. Folks continue to be friendly and reach out to please and start up conversation AND try to sell you things. AND: a new address has arrived. this will be their address for the next two years. (you may not even need to write "PCV" before their names!): B.P. 283, Buea Cameroon, W Africa [gk] #12 26 August 1995 Dear Everyone: Suddenly for me things are changing rapidly. Originally, when I came to Kumba there was the possibility that I would go to Buea the last two weeks of the training, while the other trainees continued to train here, but I didi not think tha tthis was very likely. On Friday I learned that I will be going to Buea this Sunday for an impromptu orientation at the University of Buea. I will probably come back to Kumba next weekend and again toward the end of the following week for the mini-graduation at the holiday school and for our swearing in to the Peace Corps (at which time we will be official PCVs). So, I am suddenly leaving the model school classroom. I do so with mixed emotions. I want to learn more about the secondary classroom, but I was having some difficulties. Most interesting, I caused an uproar in my Form IV Physics class by giving a test where the numbers for the problems on the test differend for each student (because I generated the tests by computer). [This letter was written on a computer, the first one not to be hand written. GK] I guess they did not take kindly to my American approach to the reputed problem of ramp ant cheating in the Cameroonian classroom. Yesterday, Sammy Enyong, the Assistant Director for Math and Science, came here to give the rest of the trainees their assignments. Since I have known about my assignment, at least its location, for months, this was not a big deal for me, but for the rest of the trainees this was quite an exciting moment. At the same time, Janice and I learned some more details about our house and her assignment. The University of Buea has rented a house for us near campus and is in the process of furnishing it. Among other things, the University will be buying us a stove and a refrigerator. This may (but not surely) end our speculation about whether we should (buy and) use a refrigerator. As strange as it may sound, it is quite reasonable to live without one in Africa, and we might still do so. We would simply buy all our food daily, all of which is fresh in the market. When I go to Buea tomorrow I will inspect the house, but I will be staying at a hotel during my orientation. I hope that the hosue is sufficiently furnished when we move in two weeks from now. Janice will be teaching at Government Technical College-Molyko (roughly grades 5-10). She will be choosing the particular courses she will teach from a list of home economics courses when she gets there. She also may be teaching at a college that teaches catering. Although I know that I will be teaching in the Mathematics and Computer Science Department, I have no idea what courses I will be teaching yet, even though classes start around 15 September. If I have my choice, I will opt for all mathematics classes, because I very much like teaching math and can use a break from computer science. As part of our participation in model school we are supposed to attend the classes of our fellow trainees and evaluate their performances, with the choice of which class to attend up to us. Without realizing it, I avoided attending Janice's classes. When it finally dawned on me that I had yet to see her teach, I decided to attend her class to see it with my own eyes rather than from her perspective. I attended one of her Form 2 classes on nutrition and thought she did a fine job, although I did not submit an evaluation because of the conflict of interest. As I explained last week, we have been without mail since we arrived at Kumba. This all changed on Wednesday when a staff member arrived from Yaounde and brought quite a bit of mail, some of it five weeks old. We are very grateful to everyone who wrote us and hope they continue to send us their delightful letters. Over time we will try to personally reply to the various people, but meanwhile, I will answer a number of their questions here. Most of my answers will be fairly brief, because eventually I will give much more complete answers in subseqnt letters. I have been developing a list of topics that I will discuss when daily life becomes so humdrum that I have nothing else to say. At the moment the list is growing more rapidly than I can use the entries on the list, but I assume that will eventually change. Ginny Delph asks: the real reason that one of the volunteers, Jeremy, left the program (to the best of my knowledge, it was only because of his teaching technique); whether we are getting to the food and amenities (we have had no problems with the amenities, I have had no trouble with the food, but Janice has had some trouble getting used to the food); do we have access to bikes (not yet, but hopefully soon after we get to Buea); what the other trainees are like (I will add that to my list of topics and profile them over the time we are here. Since there are 43 volunteers, my problmes of having too short a list of topics has now evaporated. Thank you, Ginny.); how Janice's lesson plans are going (Janice is now better and more efficient in writing her lesson plans); whether we are able to run/walk (I run daily 5-6 miles, with Janice joining me for about 1/2 the run. I have been running slowly and without pain, but with a limp that helps me "run around" my knee injury, since a few weeks before we left Ngaoundere. Despite my being told that recovery from arthorscopic surgery takes six weeks, my knee continues to improve, and I have faint hope of a full recovery.); and whether we feel safe running alone (we do much of our running before sunrise but on campus. After sunrise we often go out on the main road, and we feel completely safe, except for the scant traffic.) Cathy Barrett asks: whether we keep diaries (I keep a daily diary, and Janice sporadically makes entries in her diary); whether I have access to a camera and whether the mail is safe so the I could GET a disposable camera if it were sent to me (my faithful Minolta failed a week before we left for Cameroon, so I bought a Pentax K1000, the only fully manual camera on the market and a good one at that. Since it is fully manual, batteries are not necessary, so that I need not buy any here. I bought about 30 rolls of film before I left, and I got about 20 mailers from a U.S. film processor. After shooting two rolls of film I put the film in the mailer with US postage and give it to the Peace Corps which arranges to have the next person going to the states bring it with him or her and put it in domestic mail. Steve Krawiec receives the prints, which I hope he enjoys now and which I hope we enjoy two years from now.) Sister-in-law Rona Roberts asks: about insects, mosquitoes, other pests (we always sleep with a mosquito net, but there are relatively few mosquitoes around. About the only pest we worry about is the Tumba fly, which can cause a gross but relatively harmless problem. If you do not iron all your clothes and thus kill its larva, the larva can burrow under your skin and then grow into a fly, which then emerges and flies away. If caught early, the larva is easy to remove. The lack of many pests may be due to the altitude of the places we have lived so far.); and how we brush our teeth and what we drink (we use bottled water or water that has been boiled and filtered); why there are Muslims in Cameroon and whether there are regional differences ( Cameroon stretches from the edge of the Sahel on Lake Chad in the north 620 miles to the Atlantic Ocean in the south. That tells you everything about the Moslem influence, which is almost completely dominant in the north and fades away to a very small presence in the south.) Steve Krawiec asks whether the initial excitements continue and whether a (satisfying) routine has developed (in general, we are still quite excited about our adventure. So far, whenever we settle into a routine, things change). #13 3 September 1995 Dear All: Because the mail has become somewhat more regular and timely, thanks to various couriers from Yaounde, we are more up to date on all the interesting news from home. Again, we thank everyone who writes. This past week I spent much of the time shuttling back and forth between Kumba and Buea, as I tried to arrange what I will teach this fall at the University of Buea (UB) and as I tried to arrange our housing. Most important, I rented a post office box in Buea, which we know will speed the mail to us. So, fr om now on our address is JANICE AND EDWIN KAY, B.P. 283, BUEA, CAMEROUN, AFRIQUE DE L'OUEST. Joining Janice and me as Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) in Buea is Prabasaj Paul, a new PhD in solid state physics from the University of Utah, who will be teaching in the Physics Department at UB. Last Sunday Peace Corps (PC) drove us to Buea (which is about 60 miles from Kumba), and, after registering us at the Parliamentarian Flats Hotel, left us on our own. PC told us that UB had a week-long orientation for us, so that we expected to return to Kumba this weekend. My suspicions that there would be little planned for us were amply corroborated on Monday, when various university officials tossed us around like the proverbial hot potato. By mid-afternoon, whatever orientation we were going to get was pretty much over. It remained for us to negotiate which courses we would teach, to get ourselves office space, and to tour the library. Our main concerns then focused on our housing, which is being provided by UB and which is in the hands of Lucas Oben, an administrative officer who works under the registrar. (I believe the registrar, while having similar duties has more power than registrars in the states.) PC told us that we would have our housing by this coming weekend, but Mr. Oben was quite vague about this. We asked to at least see the houses, but without explicitly saying so, he refused, saying that the water and electricity had to be turned on and that the houses needed to be cleaned up. It started to look like we might not be able to move into our houses this coming weekend, and I emphasized strongly that I did not want to call the Parliamentarian Flats home for any length of time. To keep the process moving along, we arranged to meet Mr. Oben on Friday, when we would get a progress report. With nothing else to do, we returned to Kumba on Wednesday. Back in Buea Friday about noon, we again visited Mr. Oben to hear him say that we had water and electric, but the houses were otherwise unready for us. Actually seeing them was not possible. Wishing to avoid more commutes to Buea, I reached an agreement with him that Janice and I would come to UB next Saturday or Sunday with all of the stuff we brought to Cameroon, that a guard at the gate to the campus would take us to Mr. Oben's house, and that Mr. Oben would then show us to our house (and we could actually view the house). Prabasaj will return to Buea tomorrow to meet with his Physics colleagues and also gently prod Mr. Oben some more. After staying overnight at the Parliamentarian Flats on Friday, I checked out, while Prabasaj did not, in part to keep pressure on UB who is footing the bill. PC came by and picked us up so that we could join the rest of the trainees for a Saturday outing in Limbe. We revisited the zoo, had lunch at a restaurant with a beautiful view of the bay on which Limbe sits, and then all headed for the beach (where else does one go on Labor Day weekend?). Given that the rainy season is almost over, we got a spritz in the morning and then mixed clouds and sunshine for the rest of the day, with temperatures in the high 70s, a great day for the beach. Ah, life in PC is tough. Buea itself sits on the flank of Mt Cameroon, about 15 miles inland from Limbe. Its elevation of 3000' gives it a cold (according to Cameroonians) and rainy climate. The town itself is on a tilt, extending for about 5 miles up the mountain. UB is on a flat, square-mile plot of land at the lower end of town. Prabasaj's as yet unseen house is quite close to UB, somewhere in the student quarter, whereas our house is about 5 miles up the hill in the posh section of town (this I suppose to please us in the thought that we would not want to live near all those rowdy students; in fact, we prefer the proximity of UB, especially because Janice's school is quite close to UB). As the weather of the rainy season rolled through last week, periodically it would clear for three or four hours, exposing Mt Cameroon, a mountain so spectacular I doubt I will tire of looking at it during my two years here. It rises form the Atlantic near Limbe and stretches inland about 30 miles and peaks at 13,650'. In Buea, when it clears, you see a ridge that looms about 11,000 feet above the town at a distance of 7 miles. As you look up the mountain, rain forest changes to savannah, and the savannah changes to bald volcanic rock (Mt Cameroon is active but apparently not in danger of pumping lava into Buea). UB was created three years ago, using the campus of a school for language interpreters. Resulting from a political battle between the Anglophone and Francophone of Cameroon, it is the country's first English speaking university. It has meager resources for its 3000 students (e.g., aside from perhaps a dozen small recitation rooms, its major classrooms are five 150-seat and one 250-seat amphitheaters). Faculty are difficult to recruit, because they are poorly paid government employees. The holdings in its library could readily fit in our living on Prospect Ave. As my secondary PC project, I will surely find some way to improve their resources, perhaps by seeking American contributions of books to beef up its library. Initially, I was scheduled to teach an abstract algebra course and a calculus course for non-majors. Because I only brought a calculus book, I asked if a suitable book on abstract algebra was available. The department chair htought there was none, and I pointed out that I could not teach the course without a text, especially because the Cameroonian students cannot buy their own texts and must depend solely on their class notes. After being switched to a second calculus course, I visited the library to learn that among the approximate total of 30 mathematics books was a suitable abstract algebra text. I then renegotiated my way back into the abstract algebra course. You might ask why I am not teaching any Computing Science courses, given that the department offers a minor in CS. I am not s ure, but they may realize that the minor cannot be taken seriously given that their total resource consists of nine PCs, not all of which are functioning and which can only be repaired via cannibalization. Before ending, I answer your questions about the BBS and the shortwave radio [did anyone else ask besides me? gk]. The cheap Radio Shack shortwave works just fine, and I listen to both the BBC (African version of the world wide service) and VOA (African service). We hunger for American news but seldom hear more than an American headline. The International Newsweek filsl the gap to some extent. Edwin -------------------------A letter from Janice-------------------- - I am very impressed by the women I have met thus far, not only young women constituting my comrades in training but an ancillary corps of physicians, nurses, technical trainers, and language instructors. I will attempt to draw some verbal portraits over the coming months. I am awed and encouraged by these women; they have daring, dignity, compassion, and determination to become more than what they are. They are women on the move. Maggie is in her late twenties. She came from Ngaoundere to Kumba to teach Pidgin English. She never taught before--and then this opportunity arose. She is the mother of three children, ages 7, 4, and 2. She is expecting another child in December, her last she says. Maggie has been married for nine years. She says that her family has lived intact probably for three. This is because she spent three years of her married life going to Yaounde University, living at school and visiting her family in the summer and on other holidays. I believe for another three years her husband was away obtaining his education. The current separation is only for six weeks. They have hired a housekeeper to cook, clean, and care for her family in her absence. Maggie is a small woman with a soft voice and gentle manner. Each moring she has greetings for everyone. She wears a wig cut in a short hair style over her own very short hair. She is a conscientious person adn teacher. Her patience is exhibited for four hours a day, 4-5 days a week when she provides instruction to 6 of us who would rather be writing lesson plans or letters home or taking a nap. We are less than enthusiastic but Maggie presents new material each time we meet and encourages us to learn. She never reprimands us. Maggie is working out of economic necessity. She is sacrificing time with her family, because it must be done. I have learned more from her than just Pidgin. * * *a note from Gwen* * * * I talked to my mother this morning. Their house is not in a compound, and she feels both unsafe (PC drilled security into them) and isolated. She is to teach 10th and 11th graders nutrition, with cookery as the practical; and cookery to the same aged students in the clothing production courses. #14 10 Sept 1995 Dear Everyone: Finally, after 13 weeks, Janice & I have moved into our house at post. Despite many things happening last week, much of the time we felt like we were simply waiting for the big move. On Wednesday we attended graduation for holiday school, where prizes were given out to the best students and there was a frenzy of picture taking and of tearful goodbyes between the teachers and the students. (As a footnote to my previous explanations of the Canadian foreign aid project at GTHS, during the graduation ceremony, as I sat on stage, I looked about and saw a computer projection system identical to teh one in Packard Lab 415, which I knew costs $20,000. On later inquiry, I learned teh system has never been used.) On Thursday we had sessions to prepare us for moving to post, on Friday we were sworn in by the Deputy Chief of Mission (US) for Cameroon and we celebrated appropriately, and on Saturday we tearfully said goodbye to each other as the 24 of us were scattered over the Southwest and Northwest provinces, the two Anglophone provinces. Simultaneously, in Ngaoundere 18 of our "stage mates" who will be teaching English in the Francophone section of Cameroon were going through the same motions. As I look back on the three months of training, I conclude that Peace Corps (PC) did an excellent job of training us. They took a group with almost no teaching experience and equipped them quite well for the two years of teaching, packing into those three months most of the meat and bones but none of the fat of the usual teacher training programs. They are certainly better prep ared then I was when I first started teaching. At the same time, PC prepared us quite well for living in Cameroon, if the first 36 hours of our freedom is any indication. Janice and I felt quite at home in Buea as we went about the business of settling up our household in what in many ways is alien territory. When first contemplating the training phase I wondered how demanding it would be and whether one could "fail" training. Now I realize that almost any one who is accepted as a volunteer and who makes a good faith effort will "pass" training. Our original group of 46 has been reduced to 42. One volunteer failed to show up in Philadelphia, sixty-five year old Tom Parker bailed out his third day in Cameroon, saying he couldn't handle the diet, Jeremy Robinson returned to teach high school in New Mexico around the middle of training, and Emme Hall left about three weeks ago, when she realized that her outspoken critique of Cameroonian culture made her a better visitor than resident. Janice, I and Prasabaj Paul were driven to Buea yesterday by Dr. Sammy Enyong, assistant PC director. When we checked at the gate house of the University of Buea (UB) and asked for help in finding Lucas Oben, the guard knew nothing of the supposed prearrangement with Mr. Oben, and he toldus Mr. Oben was at his farm. As I started groaning to myself, imagining his farm being located in some other province, the registrar pointed out Mr. Oben in the distance. As we drove up to Mr. Oben we beheld him in rubber boots, a machete in each hand. It soon became clear that his "farm" is a plot of land he farms to the rear of the 700 acre campus. His plot is one of many such plots. Thus began our odyssey to our new house and Prabasaj's new house, with a number of stops along the way. The weirdest such stop occurred at a traffic jam in front of a marketplace. The principal of a high school located about three hours from Buea and where another volunteer is being posted sauntered over and asked Dr. Sammy what the arrangements would be for transporting the volunteer. Finally we got to see our house. All in all, the house is quite embarrassing, nothing like you would expect volunteers to have, vaguely discomfitting us in the same way as our house on Prospect Ave in being too pretentious. We are in a very fancy neighborhood 12 km up Mt Cameroon from UB. Our home is a single, set on about 1/3 of an acre. It is laid out on one floor, it has three bedrooms, and the very large livingroom has a fireplace (a fireplace in Africa? Well, Buea is reputed to be cold, and last night we had to throw sleeping bags over us in the middle of night to stay warm). The kitchen, far and away the nicest I have seen in Cameroon, light brown ceramic tile floor, white ceramic tile walls, and a stainless steel sink. The house even has hot water, but we probably won't turn on the hot water heater because of the extremely high cost of electricity. Mr. Oben, having clearly heard my plea to not have to live at the Parliamentary Flats Hotel, had his workmen clean up the house, get the electricity and water turned on, and place a mattress in the bedroom. Other than that, the house is empty, with a stove, refrigerator, table, bed, and four chairs to follow "soon." Luckily, PC gave us a 3 burner countertop stove and a 110 lb LP gas "tank." In essence, we are camping out in our house. We sleep on the floor in a mosquito net tent in our bedroom. We are cooking out of a two person messkit we brought for possible backpacking in Cameroon. This phase of our PC experience should end in a few days as we start to set up house. Setting up house brings us back to our first year of marriange in Houston, except that we were better paid then. I write this letter at the end of two very busy days of moving from Kumba to Buea and finally completely unpacking all of the stuff we brought to Cameroon (and discovering the loss of one or two items in the last three months, and our forgetting to bring one or two items). As I write this I reflect that I have temporarily forgotten about my teaching which is to start a week from Monday at UB. This reminds me that I learned yesterday of a Fulbright scholar who will spend the year at UB and live somewhere nearby. She is white on a wholly black campus, so she will be easy to spot. Cameroon is a small country despite its 12,000,000 people, as Sammy Enyong and the high school principal mentioned above know, but I am just learning. My name was mentioned on (Cameroonian) National Radio as a PCV so that a professor on campus at UB yesterday heard of me. At market yesterday we first encountered one of our PC trainers and later a student from holiday school. Finally, when on a run with Janice this morning, some woman we passed said, "Good morning, Dr. Kay." Until next week, Edwin #15 17 Sept 1995 Dear Everyone: This past week, our first week in our house in Buea, we have spent our time getting our household set up and settling in at our respective schools. Even though school officially started for Janice on Monday, things start slowly in secondary schools, with both students and faculty dribbling into school over the first few weeks, so that Janice really starts school tomorrow. She will be teaching three cooking classes and two nutrition classes in tandem with another teacher. Janice has the responsibility for creating menus, going to market for the food, instructing her students in cooking the food, etc. Right now we find the market somewhat daunting because it is so radically different from the typical US supermarket, and Janice knows no Cameroonian dishes. Her job will greatly accelarate the acculturation process. Classes at the University of Buea (UB) start tomorrow. This past week, Wednesday through Saturday, UB had registration. Because I am new I was excused from registration for this semester. To familiarize myself with the process I spent five or six hours observing two other faculty registering students and learned that I had little to learn. Indeed, UB registration is eerily like that of Lehigh. Some of the rules are identical (e.g., normal load is 16-18 hours, overload is by petition but cannot exceed 22 hours), and at least one course is numbered and named identically (CSC 303, Operating Systems). But there are some interesting differences. Registration bogged down (so that it is not clear that classes will actually start Monday) because of the way school fees are paid. The students must pay their school fees at a specific branch of the bank where UB has an account. They then present their proof of payment to UB, which allows them to register. That branch, which happens to be our bank branch, a fact that is vaguely displeasing, has two tellers and a convoluted system that is common in Cameroon and very slow. You first go to the teller who records the transaction, and you then go to the (single) cashier to actually make the transaction. Of course most of the record keeping is manual. Our initial contact with the bank, when we opened our account, was somewhat unsettling, but then we have no choice, because it is the only (bank) store in this town of 50,000 (?). Their handling of money was incredibly casual. We were totally alone in an office on two occasions. The whole time there were a stack of letters on the desk, with cash paperclipped to a number of the letters. At one point, a bank officer entered from one door, and a customer entered from another door and handed the manager a wad of bills worth about $1000. The manager stuffed the cash in an unlocked drawer of the desk and then left us alone. Well, as we often say (en Francais) C'est l'Afrique. Speaking of which ... We were promised furniture last Monday but all we have received so far is a bunch of interesting excuses. My hopes of quick delivery of furniture were raised in a peculiar way about 1:15 Monday morning (that is A.M.) when a truck laden with furniture pulled into our driveway, conveniently demolishing the ugly gate. Janice locked herself in our bedroom while I went to the livingroom window to find out what was going on. There I met a Dr. Godlove (I am not mak ing this up), who had in the truck his wife, his five children, a mover and helper, and all worldly goods. He said he had just ridden form Bamenda (a nine hour trip) to move into our (?) house, which he rented a month ago, so that he could take his new job with the Presbyterian Synod, which is headquartered in Buea. I gently made it clear that they were not getting into the house until our conflicting claims on the house were satisfied. I lent him my extra mosquito net, which allowed the movers to sleep in the car port, which in turn gave Dr. Godlove and his family more room to sleep on the truck. We slep fitfully, our heads flooded with fantasies of the possible resolution. Early in the morning, Dr Godlove informed us that he had learned from his superior tha this housing contract had been broking and that ours was valid. C'est l'Afrique. The weather in Buea is quite cool (lows around 60, highs around 75), because it often rains. This in turn means that everything is susceptible to mildew and mold. When we visited the PCV in Limba (on our way to Kumba and holiday school) I saw a peculiar locked cabinet with a light on inside. Could this be a throwback to the 60s when pot was grown under "Growlights" in similar cabinets? No! This was a "drying" box to protect delicate items from moisture. A 40W bulb suffices to drive out the moisture. Armed with this information, I understood why all the cabinets in our house have been wired for lights. None of these systems actaully worked, so this Saturday I repaired them all, and we are one step ahead of the ravages of the Big Damp. I guess that is all for now. Edwin #16 24 Sept 1995 Dear Everyone: Another week has passed, but we feel like we have made scant progress toward getting our lives in order. We did receive our living room furniture (4 chairs, a sofa, and a coffee table) and a nice bed on Monday. Finally we have a place to sit down. As for sleeping, the mattress on the floor was about as comfortable as on the bed. A dining room set is promised for tomorrw, but I am not too confident of seeing it then. As of a week ago Friday, only 1/3 of the UB students were registered, so registration was extended through last week, and classes were put back a week. I suppose we will lose a week's vacation in January. This gave me a change to better prepare for the courses I will teach. Meanwhile, Janice's academic career got off to a sluggish start, some of which Janice will explain in her part of the letter. Because it was not clear that her school really needed her, rather than just keeping her busy to keep PC happy, Janice began exploring other possiblities. IN doing so, she visited the Cameroon Opportunities Industrialization Centre, who, it turned out, were eager to take advantage of her counseling background, although they couldn't qutie believe her services would be free. When the Rev. Leon Sullivan started OIC in Philadelphia in 1964, and in the subsequent decade, he and the OIC got a lot of press, but then he faded from view, or at least from consciousness. When watching the news on Cameroonian TV in Ngaoundere [my parents, watching TV?? gk], I happened to see Rev. Sullivan give part of a speech at a conference in Cameroon. I was surprised to see that he was alive and kicking, and I wondered what happened to OIC. When I first came to Buea, we drove right by COIC (as I do everyday I go to UB from our house), and I realized that OIC is alive and well. It turns out that there are 16 OIC's in Africa, Cameroon's sole center being at Buea. Our communication channels seem to be clearing up as we received our first three letters at Box 283, thanks for the Rudnicks, the Wilanskys, and the Kay-Robertses. We originally thought that mail would be infrequent and slow, but our proximity to Douala (43 miles), which has Cameroon's International Airport, makes delivery of airmail fast and we think daily. The postmarks on the three letters indicate that each took 10-11 days to reach us. Two letters back, when I was assessing the PC training program, I forgot to assess a major component of the program, our language training. We ended up getting excellent starts in both French and Pidgin. In Buea almost everyone is trilingual, speaking Cameronian English, French, and Pidgin. American English allows for reasonable communication with a speaker of Cameroonian English, but having some facility with French and Pidgin is definitely beneficial, especially in the market. When I was swearing in, the Deputy Chief of Mi ssion mentioned to me that a woman on a Fulbright was spending the year at UB to teach English. Since she is the only other white on campus, I thought she would be easy to find. Indeed she was. I walked into the lobby of the "Arts Faculty Block" and a white face appeared out of the crowd gathered there for registration. Ann Loux teaches writing and womens studies at St Mary's College (South Bend IN) and hopes to teach writing here. She is quite worried that she will be ineffective because of the excessively high student-teacher ratio. For her, the ideal class size would be 10-15, but she is likely to have 40-50. [My mom indicates, in another communication, that she will likely be a writing tutor in this class, offering one-on-one feedback to some students even as she herself takes the class. gk] I tried to suggest that it may be impossible to succeed according to American standards in the Cameroonian classroom, but Ann was not reassured. Ann lives about a 10 minute walk from us, so I expect we will see a lot of her during the year she is here. Until next week, Edwin P.S. In mentioning the mail above, I forgot to state that there is surely a backlog of mail for us that has been sent to BP 817 Yaounde. That may take as long as another 6 weekes from this writing to reach us. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * FROM THE OTHER HALF... We have been in Buea for two weeks and are becoming more familiar with our neighborhood, and it with us. We create a spectacle as we jog a four-mile loop in the pre-dawn hours. Our course passes a military barracks, the Post Office and then places us on the main thoroughfare for an uphill finish. Lest we ever think we are inconspicuous the wide-eyed stares of little children--with the braver ones calling out "whiteman, whiteman"-- recall that we are "nysara," strangers. My school, GTC, has been open for two weeks but not fully functioning. Having been forewarned that it takes a few weeks for everything to gear up I have not been too dismayed. I have come to all my classes with lecture in hand and when my co- teacher was not present I did ex-tempore lectures and introduced myself. My duties are to teach Nutrition (2 classes) and Cooking (3 classes). As a co-facilitator I will learn quite a lot about Cameroonian foods, and African cooking. One nutrition class meets weekly and I thoroughly enjoy it. The other classes, as set up by the Ministry of Education, meets only once in three weeks. I am exploring other work options that can use my skills/talents/time. When Ed told me that I was listed as a faculty member at the U of Buea I made haste to meet Dr Lydia, the Chair of the Department of Education. She had written me into a proposal to be in a new curriculum for Teacher-training. (It was not approved). A pet project of Dr Lydia's is to establish a laboratory school in which teachers will teach children how to read. Having set up a small, underutilized children's library, the Dr envisions utilizing me as a reading specialist and multi- media specialist. I did not know I was so talented AND I regret not studying every program in Lehigh's graduate School of Education! I have thought about my many talented friends in Bethlehem and how valuable their skills would be here. But the reality is that I am here, not they; I am the resource. I am totally challendged and sometimes momentarily scared. The new dimension that has been added to my life since coming to Africa is a sense of humor. It is what makes so much of this enjoyable and fun. I am giving the best I can. I continue to take one step at a time and A waka fine. [Janice] #17 1 Oct 1995 Dear Everyone, I keep on thinking that these letters will eventually get repetitious and dull, but my backlog of interesting topics continues to grow. Mimi Silberstein asked a bunch of interesting questions, but I will delay answering most of them until later. Mimi mentioned being extremely pleased with the band that played at their son's wedding, the Mazeltones, a Klezmer group. A year ago May the same band performed at the Seattle wedding we attended, and we were generally impressed. [good choice, Jen & Randy! gk] Mimi also asked about the extent of Judaism in Cameron. This past week I met Bob Zimmerman, a US Cultural Attache who is Jewish and who gave me a complete rundown of the known Jewish community by listing all 11 members, consisting of a Cameroonian businessman (who is likely white) and various US and Israeli embassy officials. Needless to say, Janice has been unable to find services for the high holidays. As an interesting sidelight, which I don't think I previously mentioned, early on, our family in Ngaoundere learned we are Jewish. Later on, impressed with how quickly we were learning French, they commented that of course Jews are known to be quite intelligent, a fascinating comment, given that we were the first they had met. A travel guide to Africa (The Lonely Planet) mentions a Mt Cameroon race that starts and finishes in Buea and which is held at the end of January. Reading in more detail, I learned that it is quite well known because it ascends from elevation 3000' in Buea to the top of Mt Cameroon (elev 13,428') over a one way distance of about 8.5 miles (but the race is an up and back). I thought that if I was in shape in February [sic] I would give it a try, despite its average 20% grade (Wyandotte hill I believe to be an 8% grade). About two weeks ago there were various announcements around of a separate running of the race today. So,..now for the rest of the story. Entry in the race was free, but everyone had to get a certificate of health within a week before the race. For me this entailed going to the local hospital, waiting in a long chaotic line to buy a blank certificate for roughly the cost of a meal, and then waiting in a second equally long line for a medical exam by a physician for roughly the cost of another meal. The hospital itself was totally lacking in modern facilities and convinces me of the wisdom of the PC policy that we only use their own physicians in case of illness. The race was slated to start at 6 a.m. with the check-in at 5 a.m., which meant we rose at 4:35 (boy am I tired right now). They had a very elaborate procedure planned where each runner (a total of 128) was called to present their medical certificate and identity card, then each runner was called again to receive a numbered t-shirt and an emergency whistle, adn then each number was called yet again to receive a check card to be traded for other check cards at various checkpoints up the mountain. As this overly bureaucratic procedure starting chewing up time, there was an incredible amount of wrangling in attempts to expedite it. Around 7 a.m. the officials threw up their hands and started the race. I was the only white and the oldest by about 5 years, with most runners in their twenties. That, plus my very peculiar limping gait at the back of the pack, had the numerous spectators either laughing or shouting, "Hey Whiteman!" It was clear that they did not expect me to finish, which offered me an incentive which I hoped to ignore if the going got very tough. The race left paved roads after 1.5 miles and we started ascending steep, rugged mountain trails, initially in rain forest, then savannah (grasslands), and finally alpine meadow. Soon jogging was impossible for everyone in my sight as we all walked vigorously up the mountain, parts of which would intimidate this expert skier if it were snow-clad. Somewhat to my surprise, I started picking people off as we ascended. About a third of hte way up it started to rain heavily, and over my t-shirt I donned a water proof rain jacket which I carried along, because I knew that the temperatures would range from around 70F at the start to around freezing at the top so that rain in this rainy season can be quite nasty. I was a bit puzzled that few of the African runners (or walkers) had rain gear but later realized that they seldom if ever encounter cold rain. As I neared the last check point before the top, Hut 3, a number of runners were coming the other way because they had "surrendered," having become hypothermic. When I got to Hut 3, I found that the officials would not allow the runners to go the last kilometer to the top because of rain and high winds. I was upset, because I felt fine, but a few minutes later, when pausing in the hut I was slightly hypothermic (and surrounded by 20-30 runners who were very hypothermic). I immediately removed my rain coat and wet t-shirt to warm up in the freezing temperatures, a trick I learned in the '83 Boston, when it was rainy and the temperature was 39F. I borrowed a gendarme's canvas cape, warmed up for about 20 minutes, and then started descending, t-shirt and rain jacket in hand. Descending was about as slow as ascending, because the rain created a sea of mud on the mountain. About 1/3 of the way down, just as I was starting to sweat, I found the gendarme, returned his cape and put on my t-shirt. After slipping and sliding down the mountain I hit the last 1.5 mile of paved road and jogged in, receiving a spectacular reception from the very large crowd, so that now I am known throughout the town, despite finishing at 4:20 (9.5 hours!), many hours after the winners. As I said to Janice, "We have arrived in Buea." One of the most gratifying things about the run is that I had essentially no problems with my knew. Finally, I publicly thank you for doing a tremendous job of circulating this letter. When I originally suggested this idea, I had not realized how proix my letters would be. Now to bed. Edwin P.S. Yesterday we received all the backlogged mail from Yaounde and Ngaoundere. and Janice adds, re:beach photos "You are a gorgeous crew of cousins, I think it is terrific that you all have each other." #18 8 Oct 1995 Dear Everyone: First from Janice: From the Other Half: On shopping Interspersed through neighborhood there are small wooden sheds that serve as grocery stores. Each store has similar yet different items in stock. One store has a favorite candy bar or cookies and anther will have eggs or will grind groundnuts (peanuts), or sell spaghetti vs. macaroni. About 6:15 we notice a white van passing through the neighborhood, distributing bread and rolls to shopkeepers. Lining the roads, foods are also sold at small tables by people selling produce from their gardens. Typically these items are bananas, avocados (called pears), oranges, grapefruits, tomatoes and sugar cane. More substantial variety of foods are available at the farmers markets which are also flea markets. Market days rotate from one locale to another depending on the day of the week. Farmers set up stalls and sell their specialty items be it greens, oranges, cassavas, or cocoyams. Other "buyem sellems" (vendors) sell meats, dried fishes, salt, spices, grains, et al There are vendors of sundry items like shampoo, vaseline, tinned milk, aspirin and the like. And there is a huge markets for used clothing (which is typically the clothing being worn). I suspect that Africa is the recipient of used clothing from all over the western world. There is a market for used towels, linens, and drapes. Two women specialize in used lace curtains and do a brisk business. There are also people selling used boks, mostly textbooks. I have picked up two cookbooks and Ed has picked up some [Chinua] Achebe novels. Some vendors open their stalls daily at the same location so there are some semi-permanent shopping areas. Wandering through alleyways one will find fabric shops; side by side are men and women who have their sewing machines set up to tailor the fabric into clothes or bedding or whatever the customer wants. Variety stores have plastic buckets, enamel pots, blenders, plates, and imported foods like ketchup, mustard, Quaker Oats, jelly and a big item, sweetend condensed milk. Because each store is somewhat unique, pleasant surprises and discoveries occur. After 4 months I have finally seen hairpins for sale! We have located knives to go with our kitchen flatware. It is not easy to remember which store has what so one develops special 'antennae' when shopping. Such are the adventures of setting up our household. Janice * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Both Janice and I are still gettng organized with our work. Janice has found herself underemployed at her secondary school so she has developed a number of secondary jobs. She starts teaching a class three days a week at OIC, a class on 'motivation and attitutde.' If things work out at OIC, it is very likely she will also get involved in teaching cookery for OIC's hotel/catering training program. Also this week she starts acting as a teaching assistant in a writing course taught by a Fulbright with whom we have become quite friendly, Ann Loux. My schedule is supposed to consist of teaching two sections of one course and one section of another course in a large lecture and then giving tutorials to smaller groups of students, with the aid of other faculty teaching other tutorial groups. The two section course has 344 students who registered, and I teach each section in an amphitheater that seats 150. This is quite common, so that students arrive quite promptly for class in the hopes of getting a seat. Since there is no break, officially, between classes, there is a veritable stampede of students from the next class entering as the previous students try to exit. My other course has 104 students registered. Tutoritals have not started at this growing university because all the classrooms are occupied from 7 A.M. to 8 P.M. Monday through Friday. Three classrooms, designed to hold 100 but planned to hold 150, are supposed to be finished this week to alleviate the problem, but c'est Afrique. Because the math department is short handed, the 104 student class will be broken up into two tutorial sections, which I will teach, and the 344 student class, originally slated for 7 tutorial sections, will be divided into 4 tutorials, of which I will teach two. From British novels I had the distinct impression that tutorials consisted of an instructor and one or two students, but c'est Afrique. In reading the course description of the courses offered by the math department, I felt the courses covered too much material. In 'taking' the exams for the courses I teach to get a better feel for waht is covered and how deeply it is covered, I felt the tests were too demanding. I then learned that the university, at least in the sciences, perpetuates the "high barrier" system in place in the primary and secondary schools. To take the more extreme examples: of the 100 or so math majors who began at UB at its inception three years ago and who might normally graduate in January, 5 had the potential to graduate at the end of last semester, but only one is taking the right courses this semester to actually graduate; I don't know how many students took the 344 student course last year, perhaps 200, but 99 failed it, so that a goodly number of my students this semester have seen it all before. My first department faculty meeting was strikingly familiar but exaggerated the faults of the same meetings at Lehigh. It lasted from 3:30 to 7:30, and I was unable to communicate with Janice, who was quite worried. There were the same complaints about the lack of resources, although one could hardly claim the CS person was whining when he complained that 4 PCs are woefully inadequae to support a CS curriculum. There were the same complaints that the dean and other higher ups were not providing enought personnel and were thwarting attempts to fill advertised positions. Thee was the same double-book keeping of courses to inflate the needs of the department, need which were in no need of inflation. Of course, the business could have been conducted in 45 minutes, save for digressions and the rehashing of old problems out of the control of the department to resolve. A couple of postscripts to the Mt Cameroon race. First, I have gained instant recognition in Buea, thanks to local radio coverage and to clips of me on national TV (hey, Cameroon only has one channel!). Second, I talked with a runner yesterday whom I had seen near collapse on the mountain. He passed out and was left for dead in the cold rain by the rescuers clearing the upper mountain of injured runners. When they came to get his "body" at 11 P.M. [race started at 7. gk], he revived and quickly recovered in the shelter of a hut. We greatly appreciate pictures we have received from Gwen, Carolyn, Aunt Betty and others. Wrapped up in our own experiences, we have neglected a number of birthdays and now wish ha ppy birthdays to Rona, Eli, Noah, Steven Kay, and my mother. For now, Edwin