Work update

I'm in Yaounde (again), and I've been here for over a week now. Man, I am ready to get back to post. There's really not much to do in Yaounde except spend money on expensive western food and/or drink beer. But there's only so much money you can drop before you start to feel your soul drip out through your wallet and evaporate into the pockets of the wealthy Yaounde-ites who cater to the tastes of westerners who miss the culinary traditions of their homelands.
Well, it's been awhile since I updated anything about my work life so I'll go ahead and give a brief update. Before I left Ngong I was doing demonstrations about 4 times a week on various health topics from Malaria to nutrition for mothers and babies to the importance of vaccinations. The first day I did my nutrition presentation to pregnant mothers I mentioned the importance of eating meat and getting lots of iron because pregnant women are at a high risk of anemia in our part of the country. Well, when I went in the next day all the nurses told me that about half of the women bought anemia-prevention medicine which definitely shows that at least I had an impact and got through to the women--if not necessarily in regards to how they can naturally prevent anemia through diet.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm in Yaounde right now and I'm here because I've been selected to help out with training for the new group of agro and health volunteers arriving in a couple weeks. I'll be coming down and presenting the technical sessions on Diarrheal Diseases, Water & Sanitation, Malaria, and Food Security. The last one I'll be doing with my friend Patrick, an Agro who lives in the Northwest. I'm really excited, though, because I will also be in Bafia (the new training city) when the groups find out their posts. Not only will I be able to see who'll be the new kids around me but I'll be able to give information on a lot of the northern posts and calm some of the unavoidable fears of the trainees going to the grand north.
On the back burner right now is my trash collection project. I've been green-lighted for funding, the only snag right now is that I don't have all of the prices down for the plaques I'd like to have made for our sensitization campaign. Hopefully I'll be able to find those out before I head back up north on Wednesday night.
One other project I'm working on right now is getting a pump fixed with Chris, a SED (small enterprise development) volunteer about 22 k from me. The pump is in a small town called Rabingha, 4 k south of me. Chris is going to do some savings and general money-managing classes with the members of the water committee there, and I'll be doing some water sanitation sessions with whoever wants them.
I also did a short jam-making project a while back. It started out pretty well, but I definitely started the project too late into the mango season, so I wasn't able to teach as many people as I wanted to and I doubt the women I taught had much time to practice before the mangoes were all gone. Oh well, next year I'll have to start when the mangoes arrive.
There was an outbreak of cholera in my health district back in July but, as it stands, we've only had seven cases (none in Ngong proper) and no deaths. The last case was also over a month ago, so we're pretty sure that this specific outbreak in our district is done. Knock on wood. Who knows when another case will slither on down from the Extreme North and infect more people, though. I went out to the town where the first case was and, let me tell you, I have no idea how there weren't 100 cases. The latrines were uncovered, dirty dishes were laying around everywhere, and the well where people got their water was horrible. It was about 200 meters from the big river in the North (the Benoue) and the water table was only about a foot below the surface. The water was so cloudy and dirty that I couldn't see more than five or six inches below the surface. It looked like the water in my buckets after I get done washing my clothes. Anyway, the authorities treated the well (LOADS of chlorine in it, closing it off for a couple days), and made everyone who lived nearby start boiling their water and using chlorine when washing their dishes.
Well, guess that's about it for now. I'll probably be pretty busy in the next couple months, what with traveling back down here for training and working on the pump and trash projects.
Until next time....