Nyamboya - My Post

So I will divide this post into three parts: travelling to my post, my village and hospital, and my house.

Travelling: It takes 12 hours to get to my post, Nyamboya, from Bafia even though it is only a couple hundred kilometers away. The reason: roads designed by the devil himself. To give you an idea of how bad these roads are, there were several points while riding in a van that I thought we were going to tip over due to the fact that my window was about a foot away from the enormous puddle-lakes that occur every 50 feet on the road. There were several instances when I had to get out of the van so it could be pushed out of the mud. In addition, we passed several tipped tractor trailers that succumb to the enormous holes in the road. Needless to say, I live next to some of the worst “roads” I have ever seen.

My Village and Hospital: My village is called Nyamboya and it is in the western part of the Adamawa region of Cameroon. It is basically in the center of the country very close to the Nigerian border. Nyamboya has about 10,000 people and is half Christian and half Muslim. It has a great market where I will be able to buy mangos, oranges, advocados, pasta, rice, beef etc (btw if anyone wants to send me some awesome recipes or ship me some great American spices I would be really appreciative!!). The health center I will be working at is called the Nyamboya Baptist Health Center. The doctor there is named Dr. Jones and he is beloved by the community. The only problem I had was everyone thinks that I am a doctor. I told Dr. Jones that I am not a doctor and he told me that it was not a problem because he would teach me some procedures. I will need to better explain the purpose of the Peace Corps to my community.

My house: I have a two bedroom house with an indoor bathroom that has a toilet!! It is relatively big and I have a living room that is currently covered with pictures of the Cameroonian President, Paul Biya. It sits at the foot of a mountain and is surrounded by pine trees. I am quite happy with the situation. I am having one of my volunteer friends near my post put pictures up on her blog since the internet here is very bad. I will put up a link soon so anyone can see.

More to come soon!
Hunter