Maren and Yoko @ Cameroon, Foumban

Track our construction-- photos in chronological order, captions below each photo The school where the store is to be built The site for the store (right next to the road, on the right of the building pictured above) Delivering the cement (since the mud bricks couldn't dry) and roofing materials Partially built... playing pretend store :) And we almost have a roof! The day the contractor said it was done (before the paint misunderstanding!). Also the day of the group training session with the store board (selected from the Parents' Council, the guard (man on far left), the shopkeeper (woman in pink). Yoko, Amirah, and I are also there. After we fixed the paint misunderstanding-- the day it's going to open! The opening ceremony. Pictured: the store board, store employees/volunteers, local officials, the mayor, Yoko and I

Building projects never seem to go as planned, and Mandetkene's boutique is no exception. We had three major issues, sprinkled with a few suprises: The construction was supposed to be near completed when we arrived, and much to our surprise, ground hadn't even been broken when we got there! Then, at the end, there was misunderstanding between the contractor and the people overseeing the construction-- the contractor thought painting was not included, and almost quit the day before the store's opening when the store was still unpainted. Finally, we realized we had forgotten to plan for shelves, and scrambled the days before the opening to build and buy shelves! Yoko elaborates: At our first visit to the site, we did not see any "ongoing" constructions since the the parent's council had just decided where to have the boutique at that point. Then, the construction itself is further delayed due to that our contractor could not have those mud bricks dried dur...

We have some very exciting news to share: the village of Mandetkene now has its first official shop! Considering that this village is located over forty minutes by car (and much further by foot) from the nearest town, this is a big deal. This shop was conceptualized two summers ago, and we have been working on it since our grant application this winter. Ribbon cutting of the Mandetkene Boutique by Monsieur le Maire (mayor of the region)- quite possibly the most rewarding moment I've ever had Since we have been caught up in our camp activities and the opening, we haven't posted about the store process yet. We are going to do a short series of posts over the next few days to catch you up! To begin, here is a little background on the idea of the store: When Amirah and Jenna Biegel did a project here two summers ago, they talked with people and learned the village of Mandetkene had a problem. Many kids were ready to go to middle school but couldn't. There is no m...

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...