Happenings so far this month

The first big occasion this month was the 11^th of February – Fête de la Jeunesse (Youth Day). The day’s celebrations mainly comprised of a large group of students of all ages from all of the schools in Poli marching in parade a across Poli’s main stadium/field. There were some other events leading up to the day itself, including soccer matches between the high school and a cultural night where students performed skits and dances.

The other big event happened today and that was the arrival of our new souspréfét. As I’ve explained, Cameroon is divided into 9 regions. Each region is divided into a number of departments (depending on size, population) and each department has a Préfét and under him, a Souspréfét, both acting as extensions of the President. Each department is divided into arrondissements (like districts or counties) and then within those, there are city mayors who are voted locally, and traditional village chiefs. So getting a new souspréfét is a pretty big deal since this is an important government position and the souspréfét’s house is right next door to mine! The ceremony drew in lots of officials from town, as well as several lamidos (head chief, in Fulfulde) from surrounding villages.  All the big lamidos were wearing the traditional, flowing biu-bius that men wear in the North, along with elaborate headdresses that seemed similar to what Imams usually wear. Unfortunately my camera is broken, so I couldn’t take any pictures, but hopefully I can eventually get some pictures of the traditional dress here in the Grand North. The rest of the ceremony was mostly formalities; the old Souspréfét went down the line of officials and shook their hands, then the arriving Souspréfét did the same. Afterwards the mayor and the Préfét both said some words, and the two souspréféts did an “official,” symbolic switch where they stood on either side of the Préfét, saluted each other, and then switched places… kind of like the changing of the guards.

            At home I’ve joined some of the neighborhood teenagers in their evening soccer games… it’s been fun and quite a work out… I’m looking forward to some improvement on my part. I’ve also had the neighborhood kids over at my house to do some coloring and drawing and pass the time on the weekends.

            Other than that, things are moving slowly, yet somewhat steadily at post. This Friday I will be going back into Voko to do a presentation on tree nurseries and then hopefully going back again next week to do some introductions to A/F and hopefully find some GICs who are interesting in trying new A/F techniques.