Teaching, socializing, finding soya at odd hours of the night.

So far, most days have more or less been the same. I start out by teaching Algebra at 8:15. I have a break from 9-10, and then I have swimming from 10-11:30. Lunch is from 12-12:30 and then I have free time in the afternoon.

The algebra class has been coming along fine and I think most of the students understand well enough. They had a test today and most of the kids did pretty well. I can see a definite improvement in swimming. The kids are getting their rhythm and form down a lot better than it was when we first started. They usually only have a couple times to practice swimming a year. Once at FES in February, and then maybe one or two other times when going to the ocean.

Today we mostly practiced the side-stroke, having each individual student practice the strokes that are giving them the most trouble (either back stroke, freestyle or breast), and then some diving practice. Today we gave the kids more free time than they usually have and I think we’re hoping to leave for swimming a little earlier each day next week (around 9:45) to give them just that much more free time. We did chicken fights towards the very end which was a lot of fun. I was a base with Cory on top and we, as a team, definitely did better than most.

Most evenings, after dinner, I usually play games with the kids. Usually we play Mafia where one person is the killer, one person is a doctor, and just about everyone else is a townsperson. Everyone “goes to sleep”, the killer selects one person to kill, everyone wakes up and finds one person dead, everyone starts accusing everyone else of being the killer, and a narrator is overseeing the whole game as it progresses. Or we play Murder in the Dark. A very similar game but takes place in the dark and involves moving around to avoid being killed off.

Yesterday afternoon, I did laundry in the washing machine here at the Convention. While the laundry was going I fell asleep. I slept from about 1:45 to 6:30. Dinner was at 5:30 so I missed it. By the end of dinner, there’s usually only a little bit of food left so I figured it probably wasn’t worth getting dinner at the convention, which costs 2,500 francs ($5.30). I wanted to get some soya (steak meat) so I walked out of the convention to see if anyone nearby would be selling some.

Usually there’s a guy just across the street from the convention who has soya on a stick, but by the time I got there (9 or so), he was already closed. I was hoping to get cuts of soya instead of soya on a stick anyway. Actual cuts of the meat always taste better than on a stick. There was a 15 year old boy, named Belami, near where the man across the street usually has his cart/grill open for soya. He told me he could take me to a place that would have soya at this hour. I asked him where it was and he pointed in the direction of the neighborhood that Joan told me not to go towards at night. There are lots of bars, casinos and thieves in this area at night and it’s not really safe. He said it wasn’t far and I figured as long as I stay in a lit area and don’t follow him into any dark alleys, I should probably be okay.

We only walked for about four minutes, passed a couple bars and casinos, and there was a vendor right on the street with his grill going, with strips of steak cooking. He gave me a small sample on a toothpick and I asked for 500 francs ($1.10) worth. He took two strips of steak of the grill, cut it up into smaller pieces, put it in a brown paper bag, sprinkled some peppe sauce (hot sauce) on the soya, and put the bag on the grill to keep hot while we did the money transaction. I gave him 500 francs and 100 francs to the boy for his help. I then walked back to the convention, made myself some beef flavored Ramen noodles I bought at the store in the market and had a delicious dinner. All in all, it wasn’t a bad deal.

Tomorrow, I will go with Joan and a few other moms here at the convention to a baby naming ceremony in a town about an hour outside of Banyo. It’ll be my second baby naming ceremony in Cameroon and apparently there will be a lot of people there.

I uploaded some more pictures to Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036763&id=1337370415&l=380582917b