Maren and Yoko @ Cameroon, Foumban

It has almost been 3 weeks in Foumban and we never stopped thinking about water. I remember our first week here, ahh, was such a struggle. Coming from a priviledged living envrionment where clean water access is granted, both of us absolutely lost it the first three nights at our house in Foumban because no water came out of the faucet and we thought it never would. But as time went by, we kind of got used to the no-water situation. I started filtering water with the water purification kit I brought from Japan. step1: Put half a spoon of the Poly-Glu powder into one 1.5L bottle of dirty water . step 2: Stir and shake the bottle for ~10min and let it sit for ~5min. step 3: Filter off the precipitation with a piece of clothes. Before&After: I repeated this whole prcess a few times during the first two weeks, but guess what: WATER CAME!! Surprise, surprise. One afternoon, when one of us opened the faucet, we first heard some sucking noise and then water...

Friday night we had our dinner with the neighborhood kids. We made them breakfast for dinner- French toast and eggs- and we all enjoyed ourselves. After eating, the kids decided Yoko and I should learn some traditional dance moves. Little did we know we'd be using them later that night.  We ended up crashing a soirée and became guests of honor.  It was our first taste of a West-Cameroonian party.  The kids left our house around 8pm. Around 9pm we started to hear loud music coming from up the hill. A few minutes later, we got a knock on the window. It was the kids inviting us to come watch them dance. We finished cleaning up, then headed uphill. When we arrived chairs were set up in rows in front of this stage and people were talking. We quietly slipped into the back, but were spotted by a neighbor.  Everything stopped, an audience member escorted to the very first row, and the MC introduced us as the celebrities from Washington and Lee. Then the festivit...

It was evening, and I was cleaning vegetables on the porch. Quite distracted by my complex 3 bowl-system (bleach-water, rinse-water, clean veggies) I didn’t notice as two of the smallest kids from our chair-building camp last week appeared. When I finally looked up, they were staring down at me as though they’d been there a while. I was so surprised! I called Yoko, and once we got past the initial shock of them knowing where we lived, we invited them in for some biscuits, chocolate, and water. We chatted about our days and about their favorite game, hide and seek. When they asked if they could stay the night, we quickly realized we needed to set boundaries! We said they couldn’t stay, but that they could come back in a few days for dinner. We knew these kids lived close to us, but we really didn’t expect them to come into our gated yard. Firstly, as just noted, we have a gate (though it’s not always locked, it’s always shut). Additionally, we didn’t know the kids knew where we...

The "Engineering" Simulation Camp Hey there, probably you have noticed but this is Yoko speaking. So,  tomorrow will be the last day of the five-day chair making camp we designed for students in Foumban to take a grasp of the designing process. At first we literally thought the chairs are not going to be finished since we actually end up accepting a lot of younger students from elementary school. However, we were taken by suprise by the children. Some displayed excelling leaderships, some had really goood crafting skills, and some were really creative and good at improvisation. During the camp, we had workshops on the concept of objectives and isometric view, and each group has devised its own design sketch with an isometric view. I was warned by my engineering professor in regards to safety issues and having too many children in the camp so that we might not be able to supervise well. We, of course, took those precautions seriously, and despite some minor communicat...

After a four-hour delay, we left Yaoundé and headed for Foumban. During this roughly 6-hour trip, we watched as the countryside changed from dense forest to clearer hills and mountains. We weaved all over the road to avoid potholes.  As dusk approached (about an hour away from our destination, we were greeted by a large group of people in the middle of the road. They waved us over to stop, spoke a few words to Amirah’s dad (who was traveling with us), and we stopped to quickly change and attend some type of meeting. This was our first glimpse into the flexibility and different sense of time the people here have, as well as their sense of ceremony. The welcoming cheers as we arrived Let’s backtrack a little bit. Amirah’s family is very involved in Cameroonian politics. Her mom is a representative in Parliament, and her dad is the founder of a major political party, as well as the mayor of Foumban (the town where we’re working). The day of our travel to Foumban, Amir...

Hi, this is Yoko again: it's been three days in Foumban, Cameroon, 5h drive from the capital, Yaounde. I and Maren are alive and well at this point. Sorry for not posting for the past few days since we did not have a wifi environment where we could do posts and also we have been trying very hard to just settle us down and be able to have a considerably good living envrionment. Lesson 1  WATER SHOULD NOT  BE TAKEN GRANTED FOR. Well, guiys, three days have passed and we are already running low on our water storage. We have been using our stocked water over the past three days since there is no water coming out from the faucet. Bucket-showers are just a normal part of everyday life of people who actually live in this area. But today we couldn't even take one since we were afraid we would not have water to do other house chores if we did so. Hopefully, as soon as tomorrow, the water would come through the pipe and out of the tap. Lesson 2 DO NOT EAT RAW FOOD ON THE STREET...

hi, this is yoko