My daily life in Cameroon

It’s hard to believe I’ve already been here in Cameroon 2 weeks, but it’s been easy to fall into a routine here. The mornings (Monday thru Saturday) – as I mentioned – usually involve going to the morning conference then seeing pediatric patients in the newborn nursery and Children’s Ward. There aren’t really individual patient rooms here and the ward consists basically of 1 big room with rows of about 30 beds. The hospital complex has multiple buildings (i.e. Men’s Ward, Women’s ward, outpatient clinic, operating rooms, etc.) that are all connected with outdoor covered walkways. I posted a few photos here, including some of the Cameroonian staff that we’ve been working with. You can tell that some of them are posed since the patient has a big smile on his face while Kohta and I are pretending to look at his leg. We usually finish rounding on the wards by around 12 or 1pm and we usually have lunch at the hospital canteen (which invariably involves rice and beans and maybe an orange Fanta if I’m feeling adventurous!).

The afternoons are usually spent working on our research project on the computer, entering data. Some days instead of working on the inpatient wards, we travel to various schools to administer our research surveys. We have dinner at the Rest House around 5:30pm which usually is a Western type dish cooked by the Cameroonian women who take care of the rest house (pasta, mashed potatoes, pizza, rice, etc.).

That being said, there has been no shortage of Cameroonian food to be enjoyed here. Something I’ve already had a few times – is called “soya,” (see photo) which are sticks of meat kebabs that are grilled and sold in stalls along the street. It costs 100 cfa per stick (about 25 cents in the US) and usually is eaten with “chips” which are basically French fries. The other night, one of the ladies that cooks at the rest house for us invited us over to her home for dinner. She made some traditional Cameroonian food including “fufu” (basically a big ball of bland corn, yam, or cassava), “njama-njama” which is a mash up of huckleberry leaves - looks like spinach but more bitter, and “groundnut (peanut) soup.” Another favorite of mine has been something called “puff-puffs” which are balls of fried dough similar to zeppolis. Sometimes they come with fish or beans or a hard-boiled egg inside (a.k.a. “Scotch eggs”) but I like the plain ones and there is always a big tray of them at the coffee break for the doctors. Needless to say, I have been well-fed here but I know by the end of my trip I will be craving a nice juicy cheeseburger or some sushi from back home.

This past Sunday I went to Mass at the Catholic church in town (St. Theresia’s Cathedral; see photo), which is about a 10 minute walk from the hospital complex. Most of the Mass was in English, but there were some parts that were also in “pidgin English” which is kind of a hybrid between English and the local dialect here and is spoken in about 10% of the country. The church was packed with people sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the pews and the Mass was very lively with a lot of singing, not as somber as the Mass usually is in the US. It was also about 3 hours long.

All in all, life has been enjoyable, I'm learning a lot, and it's nice to have a break from some of the work responsibilities back home.