Site Visit Report

Ok so I have officially survived my first independent traveling experience in Cameroon - my site visit.

So last week everyone went to visit their sites for a little less than a week. My site is in Banyo - which is in the norther region of Adamawoua. So here is the break down of how one gets to Banyo (from Bafia):

1. Take a van from Bafia to Bafoussam - about 2.5 - 3 hours
2. Go to Mayo Banyo Voyage and buy ticket for first bus next morning to Banyo
3. Spend night in Bafoussam (try to find semi-nice hotel)
4. Get up at 5:00am and go to agence (Mayo Banyo) where you fight for a 'good' seat and load your luggage then wait for about an hour till van actually leaves
5. Ride about 10 hours in van with about 20-30 other people (van has technically maybe 20 seats) on dirt road
6. Arrive at agence in Banyo and again scramble to get luggage/bookbag & find moto taxi to take you to final destination....

So when following all of that, I arrived in Banyo (quite exhausted) around 4:00pm last Thursday (July 1) and fortunately I have a post-mate aka another volunteer lives in my same town. Her name is Anna and she's been here almost 2 years so she was gracious enough to take care of my during my visit.

Now about Banyo. During my visit I tried to cram in as much as possible to learn about my site so here are a few things I was able to learn:
- Banyo is surrounded by mountains so absolutely gorgeous
- My lycee is semi-far from my house (about at 10 min moto ride) and it overlooks the town so again a beautiful view even if it does take some work to get there
- I live right next to the Lamido (basically like the mayor) and the main mosque so I have a great wake up call every morning around 5:00am
- My house is really great- electricity and running water on a pretty regular basis. A living room (with a fireplace hmmm will that ever get used?), 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a kitchen - oh and its a circle house so very exciting.
- There is a pretty big marche in town everyday and I can find just about most foods that you would want to eat (relatively speaking for Cameroon that is).

So those are just a few things about Banyo. Oh and Happy Late 4th of July to everyone in America! I was also fortunate enough to actually celebrate the 4th of July with other Americans. There are some missionaries at my site so Anna, I, and her boyfriend went to their house (the Smith's) and they made hamburgers, potato salad, German chocolate cake and ice cream - we even 'saw' some fireworks that's to say Mr. Smith had created a document with pictures of fireworks from various cities in America so yes still fireworks though - a very nice little celebration. And overall my visit to Banyo was a super success.

And now I am back at training (we got back Monday) and officially finishing up week 5. Model school has started and I will be teaching next week - Terminale and Cinqieme (basically 12th & 7th grade) English so we will see how that goes. Oh and tomorrow is an exciting training day- mountain bike training!

Well everyone should watch this Sunday - July 11th - the end of the World Cup! What will we do now that soccer will be over? ...