FES in Bamenda

On Sunday morning, around 7:30, the Lokkers and I left Banyo to go to Bamenda. It took about 9 or so hours to get here. The ride wasn’t too bad. It was a bit sunny and hot that day but the ride was smoother than normal thanks to our luggage weighing the suspension down a little bit. With no weight, the springs are pretty stiff and you feel every bump.

We arrived at the Cameroonian Baptist Convention in Bamenda just in time for dinner and the opening ceremonies of FES, the two week missionary kids school. The children, ages 6 to 8th grade, each had to do some sort of presentation. The kids either recited poems, sang songs, one girl played the piano, and Tim prepared a video slideshow of the Lokker family.

Currently, I’m staying in a guest house at the convention. Most families share a one or two room apartment but I, for a little while, have a whole house. It has about 4 bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, and one bathroom. They more or less didn’t have a place to put me so they put me here in the meantime. It was being occupied by a family of seven up until January. When I first got here, I was told I would probably be staying in this house the whole time and get a house guest this Friday. However, now it looks like I may move to a place a little closer to the center of the property. I kind of like it here though. It’s big and it has internet access that I can plug into. The other rooms wouldn’t have that. We’ll see what happens.

Every Monday through Friday over these two weeks, my day will start around 8:15 with teaching algebra to the 8th grade with Sherri. The class has five students and it lasts for about 45 minutes. I start out by either going over homework problems from the previous night, or going over the day’s lesson and using a white board to write out the problems and work through them. Then the kids practice some problems from the book on their own, we go over them, and then they start on their homework. The kids seem to be doing pretty well so far. I just hope it doesn’t get really tricky and that I can continue to teach in a clear, understandable manner. One example of the kind of problems we’re doing is: A dress shop sells more expensive dresses for $45, and less expensive dresses for $20. If they sold $1,375 and 20 more of the less expensive dresses than the more expensive dresses, how many of each dress did they sell? Usually Sherri and I will probably assign about 15 problems for homework each night. Both Fridays, the students will have a small test.

After algebra, the kids have language arts. Then it’s swimming time. It’s a few minute drive to the hotel with the swimming pool we’re using. We’re there from 10:10 until 11:30. I’m helping an adult named Nathan to teach swimming techniques to the older boys. I’m also occasionally helping out Bethany who is teaching two girls similar stuff. So far we’ve practiced treading water, scissor kicking, the freestyle stroke, breast stroke, backstroke, and diving. Soon we’ll start the butterfly stroke after the kids have improved on their endurance and technique.

The pool is 15 meters long and 8 meters wide whereas most full size pools are 25 meters. It feels about 8-10 feet deep. Still, it’s a pretty good size considering we only have about 10 students in the water at the beginning. Around 10:45, little kids (ages 4-7 approximately) from FES come, and we share the pool. So it’s a pretty nice setup but the water is a bit murky. It doesn’t smell odd, other than how pools usually smell, but it’s just a bit dark and hard to see under.

The younger kids lost a toy today towards the end of the session and Nathan tried to find it on the floor of the pool using goggles. He said that he could only see an area no bigger than four feet wide. When he was at the bottom, I could not see him at all. I joked at lunch that if someone died in the pool and sank to the bottom, they wouldn’t know about it. Apparently, a few years ago, on a Saturday night, there were people partying at the hotel, and one man was probably a bit too drunk, fell in the pool and drowned. His body wasn’t found until Monday morning, when someone was swimming and felt him at the bottom. Yikes.

When we get back from swimming, it’s just about time for lunch. Then I have free time in the afternoon while the kids are doing other classes such as art, music and learning about the Olympics. Dinner is at 5:30 and then after that, it’s mostly have freetime again. If there are events happening, then I would participate in those but last night nothing really happened. I make small chit-chat with some of the people around here but usually most people are pretty busy, so I’ve been spending time in my room, relaxing and catching up on some reading.