The answer is 9- four in the front, five in the back, for an
hour ride into Bamenda for a grand total of 2 USD. Two men in the driver’s
seat, me and another woman on the passenger’s side, one man in a leg cast, a
child with two wrapped burned hands, his mother, another man, and another
woman. Delayed only by the herd of cows blocking the road out of Mbingo. They
are led by Fulani herdsmen who are apparently a nomadic people who travel
horizontally across Africa. They are easy to pick out because they wear flat
hats and have long skinny faces with very fine features. The women are very slim
and beautiful, would probably be millionaire models if born in the US. That’s
really all I know about them.
We finally got the internet back today which makes data
input a whole lot easier. Yesterday I was called for a consult while I was
eating breakfast, I’m not sure how they found me by phone. Someone was calling
from the maternity ward about a 32-week twin that was just born (the other twin
had died shortly after delivery), and they wanted me to come by and “just take
a look at her”. There is currently no pediatrician here and they are desperate
for help and for someone to lead rounds with the residents. They want me to
jump into this role on Monday which is both exciting and terrifying. Sink or
swim I guess. I will have to widen my differential.
The people here speak Pidgin English which is kind of English
and kind of not, but definitely hard to understand. I thought I would learn French
while I was here but this is not a francophone section of Cameroon. There is a
lot of talk about Boko Haram here, but they are 3 days worth of travel away
from us. Everything that I’ve seen on the news back home names them as a
Nigerian Terrorist group that is against Westernization. If you talk to people here,
however, they say that they’re not sure if they’re Nigerian because they live
among the people in northern Cameroon/Nigeria. They recently kidnapped the Cameroonian
president’s wife and attacked a border village. The Cameroonian’s fought them
to the border, but apparently Chad’s army pushed all the way into Nigeria.
According to the cab driver, there are 3000 Haram, but over twice as many in
the Chadian army.
The president’s wife was returned and the 32-week baby is
doing great.
The food here is interesting, I don’t know what I’m eating
half the time. Last night we ate fish with the face staring at us. A lot of
bones, but pretty tasty. Yesterday for lunch we ate beans and something that
tasted like a donut hole. For dinner tonight we ate ndole (end-o-lay) which is a spicy stew made of bitterleaf greens which we ate on top of a piece of Cassava which
is a root plant. I could’ve done without the cassava, but the ndole is
excellent and we eat it with almost every meal. You have to chew the meat for a
long time. I haven’t seen any milk here for some reason, we always use powdered
milk called Nido.
Friday we’re going back to Bamenda to do some more work. I’m
going to go into town to try to find some material for a dress and maybe a
soccer jersey for Jónas. The days are long with chapel in the morning and are
pretty non-stop until the evenings. I think we will go hiking this weekend,
maybe take a trip to an old castle that people have been talking about. I’ll be
happy to sleep in a little.
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