A Trip to the Hospital

My head was pounding and my body aching among other problems and though I detest going to the hospital here I decided it was probably necessary. So, early that morning I set out for the 15 minute walk to the local hospital I changed my mind as I saw a motorcycle passing by and decided that would be a much better way to go so that I could avoid greeting every person along the way(not exactly what you feel like doing when you are sick). I felt as though my head was going to explode as the moto bounced along the rocky path to the hospital. I arrived and was greeted by the caretaker of the hospital Ashley, you are here (Francophone Cameroonians love to speak in the present obvious), yes I am here, you are sick, yes you are right I am sick. Nothing in the hospital was seeming to be in the right place…”we are doing some renovations” he explains. I look out into the open courtyard (if you can call it that) where about 15 hospital beds lay strewn about, looks like they must be making good progress on those renovations, I thought to myself. He then explains that the staff is not in yet and I can wait with all of the others who are there to see the one doctor that serves our village as well as several other smaller surrounding villages. After about half an hour another worker approaches our growing group of sick people in waiting. The man says “oh you are all waiting to” (once again the present obvious) “well the doctor is not in yet but we have now changed the check-in area follow me.” The group of mostly women and children and I follow him about 50 feet away to a different bench not long enough to hold all of those waiting to get checked-in. I sit on the bench in great discomfort from my body aching all over and then decide to stand thinking that would be more comfortable. The moment I stand someone takes my place on the bench which is also the line and order in which we are supposed to see the doctor. I argue with the individual and get my spot back on the bench and thus in line to see the doctor. An hour more of resting in the same place and no one has even entered the consulting room where the man who should be checking everyone in is instead arguing over a family issue with a friend who stopped by to see him at work. Outside the consulting room we sit in the open air and wait some more, I sit among a boy who has a gaping wound on his bloody foot which he has just sliced open with a machete while working in the fields and a young girl who is sweating profusely and looks like she is drifting in and out of consciousness, but there are also those who have less pressing needs one woman who I know well tells me she is there because she had a cramp in her hand. The hospital with our one doctor is the only place to go to get any sort of medical attention without driving to a bigger town and thus the whole spectrum of medical problems appear.
Sometime mid-morning the director of our hospital arrives to work, sees me sitting on the bench and says Ashley you are here, yes correct again I am here. I tell him that their system is very disordered and very slow (I would never say something like this to someone back in the states but here being straight forward and sometimes what we would consider as rude in the states is the manner of conversing here in french, just like the present obvious). Just a half hour after this comment was made I finally got through to the consultation room and then immediately in to see the doctor. The first time I had been to the hospital the doctor diagnosed me without doing any actual tests to confirm his hypothesis, when I asked him about this he said that was normal because most people don’t want to pay for the actual tests, I told him I would pay just to be certain that whatever he believes to be wrong is actually in fact what I have. So automatically this time he ordered the few tests our hospital is equipped to do, blood and stool, and after a few hours more of waiting I am sent home with medicine to rid me of the typhoid and amoebic dysentery I have somehow been lucky enough to contract at the same time.
This time I walk home and by the time I make it back to my house everyone I greet along the route knows I am sick and they have each promised a visit. One thing about being here you are never alone and though visitors while I lay in bed may not be exactly what I want, I do appreciate the way that people care for one another here.

And the Darwin Award Goes to….

While in Garaoua in the Northern province of Cameroon we met up with some friends who live in the area to go to the river that travels through town where a man has trained a few of the hippos that live in the river. I don’t think any of us actually knew what we were getting ourselves into when we met up with the “hippo man.” I believed that we were going to go out in one of the dugout canoes in the river and would see the hippos from a distance but once we were out on the water the distance gradually got smaller and smaller between us and the hippos until we docked in the shallows of the river and our friend then called his friend “Afrique l’Hippo” over to where we were standing outside of the boat with a few sweet potatoes and ground up corn flour. Before I knew it I was standing in the shallows of the river watching the sun set over the African planes and watching the hippo rise out of the water for its evening meal(hoping it would not be me).


HUNGRY HIPPO



Probably not a good idea...




Yeah, may not have been the smartest thing I have ever done! Being that close to such a powerful wild animal was an adrenaline rush that I don’t think I will experience in quite sometime and I am just thankful that we all got out of there with all of our limbs intact and of course some great memories.

Another highlight of the trip up north was hiking along the Northern Cameroonian/Nigerian Border outside of the village of Rhumsiki in the Extreme North Region of Cameroon. The terrain in this area is unlike any other area of Cameroon and reminds me some of Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs with jagged rock faces jutting up from the valley.




We reached the village by taking a van from the Extreme North capital of Maroua and arriving in the village of Mokolo where we then took motos for another 2 hours along a small dirt road and although the village is an effort to reach it is absolutely worth the travel. Once there we spent two days hiking through the valley and eating amazing food each night at a favorite Peace Corps restaurant The Vegetarian Carnivore. Kodji, the owner of the restaurant is a good friend to many Peace Corps Volunteers from over the years, each volunteer he meets he tells us (in impressively good English I might add)about his experience of having a PCV English teacher in his village when he was in high school.

Kodji with his famous homemade bread



Everything he makes from scratch with a lot of ingredients that he has grown in his fields. Four courses cooked over a fire, by far the best meals I have had in Cameroon!

Below is a photo of some women we met on our hike while just over the border on the Nigerian side, they are carrying bread from one market to sell in another. As we walked with them the woman in the green decided I should stay with them because I looked strong and would be a good worker in their fields, which she decided made me the perfect candidate for marrying her son.



My new “mother-in-law” and I at the entrance to my new compound


A trip to the village of Rhumsiki would not be complete without a visit to the revered crab sorcerer.



For generations and generations the power of reading one’s future by communicating with a crab has been passed down within the family lineage of this 97 year old man.

Receiving the Crab Sorcerer's blessings



The Clairvoyent Crab himself


I really enjoyed my time up north specifically the calm, more laid back environment that the North provides. In the south people are generally a bit more aggressive and when in village as the only foreigner for miles there is a bit of the spotlight effect on your life so honestly I enjoyed the anonymity of life that the travels provided. I did however miss the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables that seemingly grow over every inch of the south. I realized what a blessing it is to live in such a fertile land and one that has water readily available, though not always clean we do have a constant supply of water. One of our friends villages we visited the villagers dig holes in the dried up river bed during dry season just to reach water and though we were there during the rainy season the river bed was still dried up. Though I have thought much more over this last year about water conservation and water purity than ever before in my life, I couldn’t have ever imagined the lengths at which some people have to go daily just to seek the most vital element to life.