A busy week at post

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are my own and not that of Peace Corps.

Last week, I was hard at work on the Books for Cameroon website. Friday, a few of us will meet to discuss it, along with a few other secondary projects that are underway. Another project is an AIDS/HIV awareness initiative involving Moto (motorcycle) drivers spreading the word. Books for Cameroon is a project started by Cristina's predecessor that is looking for French or English language books for libaries in Cameroon. The website is still under construction, but feedback and comments are more than welcome.

Tomorrow, I'm also hosting a small party for the ICT department at the high school. I was reminded on Tuesday that I'll need to make food as well (and I thought it was just drinks!) I decided against trying Cameroonian food, so I'll stick to simple appetizers (deviled eggs, salad, bruschetta, french fries) and a salad, maybe spaghetti also. We'll see how this goes: it's my first opportunity to entertain Cameroonians in my house!

I also prepared some training for volunteers on creating web sites. No sooner had I written those PowerPoint slides than I was asked to train the teachers at my school also! Not on web site development thankfully, but on Word, Excel and other basic functions. That will start Friday afternoon. Thank goodness I have the projector for both efforts! Probably no surprise, but it was already damaged in another teacher's class (a couple of pins broke on the video connector), but it still works. Now I'm keeping it with me and guarding it like a hawk :(

The students were unusually bad this week. A couple of Cinquieme students started throwing punches and wrestling and I had to run out of the class to get the Censeur. A few others threw punches or pulled my hair: then just rn away went I sent them to the discipline master. It was rather cartoony: they ran as far as they thought was out of my reach, and I had to give their names for punishment later. But overall the Derange-o-Meter still is effective. And kids on average do seem to learning the material. That's the important thing!