Arrival in Cameroon

I safely arrived yesterday in Banso, one of the more rural towns in the NW Province of Cameroon. It only took a 6 hour plane ride from NY to Paris, a 6 hour plane ride from Paris to Douala, an overnight stay in Douala, a 6 hour car ride north to the large town of Bamenda, and a 3 hour car ride up the mountains to Banso. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time I arrived here last night and for the first time in a very long time, I went to sleep at 8pm.

Arriving in Douala airport was much less daunting than the Volunteer Coordinator’s email had suggested. All it took was some patience and being okay with large mobs of people waiting on an unorganized line – waiting for customs, waiting for your luggage, waiting to leave the airport. I had to suppress the New Yorker inside me that wanted to yell out, “Hey! Don’t even THINK about cutting me in line!” But, in reality, there wasn’t really a line – just a huge crowd of people. All in all though, my luggage arrived safely in Douala and the Cameroon Baptist Convention (CBC) driver found us with no problems. I guess it wasn’t too hard to pick out 2 Asian girls (Marcia and me) in a huge crowd of Cameroonians.

We arrived in Cameroon in the evening time so we stayed the night at one of the CBC guest houses in Douala, which was fairly nice with even a swimming pool (although it was too cold to swim). The next morning we picked up some breakfast at a local bakery and left early for the long drive up to Banso. The drive was long, but beautiful and, although it is just nearing the end of rainy season, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. All of the landscape is lush and green and almost reminded me of the opening scene from Jurassic Park. I don’t really think the pictures fully capture how beautiful it is.

The drive up was fairly smooth – figuratively, not literally. The road itself has more potholes than I have ever seen in my life and avoiding them – even in the 4x4 vehicle we were riding in – was like a video game. There are many people selling fruit or snacks on the street and any time the car slowed or came to a stop 3 or 4 vendors would come up trying to sell peanuts or bananas or some sort of cassava wrapped in banana leaves.

When I arrived in Banso, I was happy to see Kohta (one of the other Med-Peds residents) and Lee (a Peds ID fellow), who are both Sinai doctors with whom I am working on a research project with. They have already been here for almost 5 weeks so they showed me around the hospital campus, introduced me to some of the hospital staff, and oriented me to the rest house we are staying at. The rest house is fairly nice and I have my own room, unless more people arrive, which it doesn’t sound like will be happening any time soon. We get 3 meals a day, cooked by 3 Cameroonian ladies and I have been well-fed so far. The biggest challenge has been communicating back home. The internet is only at the hospital and the wireless is not very reliable, depending on the rain, power outages (that can happen a few times a day), and how many people are on the network. I am working on getting a Sim card for my phone but that requires a car ride into town, so hopefully this week that will happen.

Today was my first full day here. We attended chapel this morning and during it, they asked if there were any visitors. I, obviously, could not just hide in the background because I would stick out like a sore thumb so I stood up and they asked me to come up to the podium in front of about 200 people and introduce myself. Luckily, Kohta and Lee were there for moral support. I attended morning rounds today on the Pediatrics Ward, where we see some interesting cases. I haven’t actually started working on the wards yet, but hopefully later this week I will.

More to be updated again soon, but so far, Cameroon has been nothing but welcoming.