Roller Coaster

This week has been one I will never forget. It has epitomized my experience here by being the definition of “ups and downs” while at the same time been so far out of the ordinary, that it in no way can represent the rest of my service here.

This week started amazingly. Everyone was so psyched about finding out their posts (which happened on Wednesday). Monday brought packages and letters from home. Spirits were high as we sat around eating melted Milk Duds and cheese that people’s families had sent from the states. Our language scores from our second language proficiency test came out. I was so freaking excited.

So language proficiency in broken up into 9 levels: Novice Low, Mid and High, Intermediate Low, Mid and High and Advanced Low, Mid and High. In order to be placed in a francophone region, you need to have reached a proficiency of at least Intermediate High in French and Intermediate Mid for Anglophone regions. Needless to say, I started at Novice low, alone with very few other people. My French consisted on “bon jour” and a very few words I remembered from French when I lived in Germany. My goal was to make it to intermediate. I just wanted to prove that I was learning. I was so surprised and elated to find that I had tested at Intermediate Mid! I spent all morning doing my happy dance. I could not believe it. In a mere four weeks, I went from speaking no French at all, to being able to hold very basic conversations and communicating basic needs and wants. I’m getting there! After school on Monday, we all went out for drinks to celebrate. We were in Bafia, with the other programs and all of us joined forces for an afternoon of merriment. There’s a boutique close to the training center that gets a butt-ton of business from us “blanches”. You can imagine how crowded it was when almost 50 of us stormed the place in high moods. Also, a PC Volunteer who is about to COS (Close Of Service= go home after 27 months) sold a PCT (PC Trainee) his guitar. The whole day turned into this marvelous jam session as people passed around the guitar. Really, there is nothing more “Peace Corps” than seating around, drinking crappy foreign beer, signing songs together. It was amazing.

The time to depart came all too soon and all the Santé’s (Health Programmers) climbed into the two cars to head back to Bokito, our small town. Our great spirits held as we had an oldie sign-along on the way back. Journey, the Lion King, and Elton John were bursting from our small portable speakers all the way back. About half-way to Bokito, the cocoa-bean-laden truck in front of us decided to pass the car in front of it. As it tried to get back in our lane, it veered out of control and flipped numerous times. Dust from flying cocoa beans obscured our vision as the truck finally came to rest, right side up, rolling into a car heading in the opposite direction, pinning it between the truck and the guardrail. As our bus slowed, we were so confused. What had just happened? Those of us in the back could only see dust and hadn’t seen what had happened while those in the front were awestruck. It quickly sank in and we mobilized. In our bus were four EMT’s, including myself. We hopped out and ran to scene. You can imagine what this might have looked like. A random road in the middle of greenery with us running into a cloud of settling cocoa-dust, running toward a banged up truck. It was movie-worthy. When we got close enough to see what had happened, we quickly sized up the scene. The driver, who was wearing a seat belt, was stuck in the truck, blood all over him. The four of us scrambled for gloves and materials. Two of the EMT’s were smart enough to have kept small kits on themselves, so between the four of us, we had two pairs of gloves. Two of the boys split a pair of gloves and approached the vehicle.

In a country where HIV/AIDS and other bloodborne diseases are rampant, you can imagine how important PPE (personal protection equipment, including gloves) is. Not having gloves, I ran around to the other side of the truck, to the car, to see if there were any more victims. The people in the car said they were ok, but pointed to a man lying in the group, underneath the guardrail, yards behind us. I ran over, and found someone who had obviously sustained serious crush injuries. I don’t want to get into too many details or too graphic, so I’m going to break this down quickly. The third EMT took the last pair of gloves and took charge of getting this guy into a car we had commandeered. The other two EMT’s had managed to get the driver into the back of the car, with one of the EMT’s in the back, putting pressure on the guys’ head wounds. He was ripping up his shirt trying to make bandages to help to this guy. Between two EMT’s and some Cameroonians who were at the scene and finally made themselves useful, we were able to get the second guy in the back of the car.

Cameroon doesn’t have an emergency system. There was no ambulance or police to call. We were 20 minutes away from any hospital, at least. In addition to these obstacles, in Cameroon, if you bring someone to a hospital, you’re expected to pay for that person’s hospital bills. Compared to the states, it’s nothing, but its quite substantial on a typical Cameroonians’ paycheck. Therefore, after we had loaded these two guys into some random strangers car, no one was willing to go to the hospital with these guys. No one wanted to drive and certainly no one wanted to climb into the back of the car and maintain the airway of the second patient. They argued for what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes. I got so impatient and started pointing to people, telling them to get in the car and go. These guys needed immediate help and no one was stepping up. That tactic had no effect, but eventually, arguing amongst themselves, three people stepped up to drive, accompany, and sit in the back with the guys. They drove off immediately, in the direction of the hospital and the three EMT boys were left in the dust dripping in the victim’s blood.

This was such a wakeup call to so many problems here in Cameroon. A health system that people are resistant to utilize, a culture that basically doesn’t know how to or want to respond to emergency situations, and an education system that doesn’t prepare people for situations like this but instead leaves them helpless. In addition, terrible road conditions (granted, this road was not terrible), even worse driving, and horribly maintained vehicles leave car accidents as the second leading killer in Cameroon (following Malaria, according to our PCT Manager).

As terrible as this experience was, it brought us together and showed us the many areas we could help improve upon in Cameroon. Again, I am seeing why I am here and why our presence is so precious to these people.

Gosh, my posts are getting morbid. I want to reiterate to readers that I am enjoying my time here and loving what I am seeing and learning. What I choose to write about every week is what is on my mind, and therefore, important to me and my experience. They are my learning experiences, whether good or bad. Our presence at this accident probably saved a life. While I am horrified at seeing the worst accident of my EMT career in a country and situation where we had no materials or help of any kind, I am grateful for the victims that people of skill and knowledge were there to help get them out of the car and on the way to a hospital. And I learned a lot that will hopefully help me to make a sustainable difference at my post in the future.

Speaking of posts, I have some great news. After this “down” part of my week, things went back up on Wednesday as we received our post assignments!!! I’m heading to a town called Mogodé in the Extreme North Region. I don’t know much about my specific post, but the Extreme North is known for being beautiful and mostly desert, at least during the dry season. It’s a mostly Muslim area with very traditional areas. Many of the people that I have spoken with who work up there focus  a lot on women’s issues, empowerment and health, which is exactly what I want to do, so I’m extremely excited.

Today, we had our Community Host Workshop were we met our Community Host. This person is someone who is going to help us integrate into the community. There are a well established figure in the community, well versed in the culture, and very knowledgeable about groups and issues of our areas. In addition to our formal Community Hosts, each of us will receive a counterpart in our Host Institutions where we will begin our work or at least our community assessment. So today, I met my counterpart. She is a baller, amazing young women called Genevieve. She told me that I will have to learn the language Fulfulde and the local language Kapsiki (I think that’s it) due to the fact that French won’t get me far up in the extreme north. Apparently, it’s also very much in the boonies. I’m very excited about working with her.

I wish I had more information to give you about my post and Community Host, but I just don’t know yet. This weekend, we’re leaving for our Site Visits. I will be visiting the site where I’ll be living for the next two years, meeting the PCV I’ll be replacing and meeting the people I’ll be working with and people from the community. It will take me at least two days to get to my post. I’m so excited. Anyways, when I return, I will update you all on my post, and everything I will learn about how I will spend the next two years. Wish me a bon voyage!

Love to all!