Learning the ropes: Beginning training at the Embassy

Monday, October 4, 2010

I arrived in the Yaounde airport to a dark and rainy city. After getting off the plane, there was a man standing outside the gate holding a big sign that said "Jade Christina," just like the do in the movies! His name was Dairou (I think that's how its spelled) and he was very friendly and was a great welcome into the country. As he was driving me to the hotel, which was about a half hour away, I realized that I hadn't really spoken to anyone in about a day, and was ridicoulously chatty, and was asking him all sorts of questions. He didn't seem to mind! When we arrived at the Hotel Azur, Meera one of the other ETA's, came running down the stairs to greet me. We then found Eva, the third of our team, and hung out for a while in my room. Nothing could have felt better than finding those two after traveling alone half way across the world for so long. At the moment, I knew that one journey had ended, and another had begun.


Early Monday morning, we headed to the US Embassy for our first day of training. As Eva, Meera and probably anyone else that I met that day could probably tell, I definitely had not gotten enough sleep. Regardless of my half-open eyes and disorientation, I tried my best to take in everything as much as possible!

The Embassy is close to the Hotel Azur, in the Bastos neighborhood of Yaounde. It is set away from bustling Centre Ville- center of the city (although with Yaounde’s amazing spider-web of a layout, its hard to really say where the center is exactly!) An Embassy car came to pick us up every morning and drove us back in the evening at the end of the day. On the short drive, we descended the hill from Hotel Azur, and drove around a huge rotary with a yellow metal statue with the number 50, a peace dove and two hands, symbolizing the 50 years of independence. From the rotary, there is a breathtaking view of outer Yaounde’s lush rolling green hills and valleys, and many rainbows caused by downpour rain showers that scatter throughout the day. I guess that must contribute to how Yaounde can stay so beautifully green!

From the outside, the Embassy looks like a compound—a sprawling tan angular building surrounded buy a high guarded fence and surrounded by a lush green golf course. On the first day, everyone is very friendly and welcoming even though part of my conscious self was probably still in the air somewhere between Yaounde and London.

In the beginning, after handing in all cellphones, cameras and computers to security, passing through various metal detectors, giving our passports to a Marine officer behind a thick and foggy class window, we were ready to begin the day.

We met Gerald, our contact from the DC training and Mignon, the Foreign Service Officer who works in the Public Affairs Office at the Embassy. She is a young American woman from North Carolina stationed in Yaounde for 2 years, and she is really lovely. Even though she just moved to Cameroon, she seems like an expert at her job and has done an outstanding job making us feel at ease. Mignon and Gerald are doing a thorough job helping us clarify a lot of the ambiguity of our situations, and a lot of the details are finally revealing themselves, which is a huge relief!

Throughout the week, we had meetings with Jen, an outstanding ESL teacher who was one of the facilitators of our teacher training sessions in Washington. It was a surprise and a real treat to be able to learn from her again, and really effective and productive in our small group of 3. Jen is a former Fulbrighter herself, and is from New England but is teaching in Finland and has traveled all over the world working doing different forms of International Education work.

On the first day, the presentors included Gabriel, a Peace Corps coordinator who spoke on Managing Expectations, a Health Safety Lecture by the Health Practitioner who is from Massachusetts!

At the end of the day, we met Mackenzie, one of the research Fulbrighters who is living in Yaounde and auditing classes here at Yaounde 1, the public university. It was so great to see her after such a long time and to hear that she's enjoying her explorations in Yoaunde. After that, Meera, Eva, Jen and I went to the Tchinga neighborhood and had dinner at a buffet style restaurant, and I got to taste my first real Cameroonian food! Rice, fried plantains, salty beignets, beans, steamed greens, chicken- really delicious! I also had a chance to call my bank from an international phone booth, and check up on the status of my incoming card's arrival. Those booths are always fun.

After dinner, we met Joe, another research Fulbrighter doing research with the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) and who will be stationed in Yaounde for the majority of the time, for drinks at our hotel. It is such an enormous comfort to have other people in very similar situations here, and to feel like part of a team. Since we will all be dispersing to our own corners of the country soon, it feels really important to soak up time with each other as much as possible!