Everyday life in Ngaoundéré

After living here for five months now I feel like this is home, and that we have a day routine for each day even though no day is the same as the last one.

On Mondays I try to wake up early, even though we do not have anything on the schedule until two o'clock in the afternoon. Then we get a ride from the one-year-volunteers to the orphanage and stay there for about four hours.At Rainbow Orphanage we play, paint and draw together with the kids. And I like it very much! Last week we taught them a card game called Bellow 15. They loved it! And it actually worked playing with them, although some of them had never played with any cards before.We also watched Charlie and the chocolate factory on the big TV they have. It was really fun and the kids also enjoyed it!

Today we're maybe going to sleep over there with the kids. I am looking forward to it and we're probably going to eat couscous with them again. Last time we did that was when Pernille was visiting. She is Sara-Jeanettes friend and a former Hald student who lived here two years ago. The couscous we got then was with gombo sauce, which is a bit slimy and kind of brown green, but it was really good!! It was the best couscous I have had so far! So I am looking forward to going back and being with the kids over there.

On Tuesdays we usually have a day off to study the curriculum for Hald. So with the books we go down to the pool and read for several hours there in the sun. We also go for a swim or just hang out with the friends we have made here. In the evenings we join the Gospel Singers practise which lasts for about two and a half hours each time, if not for three when they have allot to talk about after we're finished.

Wednesdays and Fridays we work at Centre Socio Ménager, which as I have said before is a school for young girls that are either married or are without any education or have not finished their education for some reason. I am teaching the second and third year girls in English. It is a bit of a challenge, as they are almost the same age as me. But I try to be strict when I need to, and I try to engage them in the lessons I have. Even though they aren't so interested in learning English. Most of them have never gone to school before, and therefore they do not read very well in French or in English. So some of the lessons we have spent reading some text from some schoolbooks I brought with me from my old school in Arendal.
I have also been teaching them how to use a computer, but for some reason the three computers they had that were working have crashed down or something. So we have not been teaching them this for about two months now.

On Thursdays I work at the Direction Central for the assistant to the bishop, pastor Foumgbami. He gives me some documents that I have to write down on the computer. I have been writing some of his speeches, but lately I have been documenting and sorting out the numbers and names of all the newly baptised children and adults in the congregations out by the Tello village. Last time I also wrote an explanation of the conflict that has been going on in the church here in Cameroon for about three years now. EELC, the Evangelic Lutheran Church in Cameroon, has had a group that has split up from the rest, and has tried to keep the old name the Evangelic Lutheran Church of Cameroon. But I won't go any deeper into that conflict now, maybe I will do it in an other post, maybe..

In the weekends we enjoy the life and hang out with friends, play cards and watch films. We also sometimes attend the sermons in the Millennium church on Sundays and sometimes we have choir practises in the afternoon if we have a concert coming up.

Johanne Teresie