Month 8

So here we are at our eighth month of being in Cameroon, the time is flying by and we will be back home eating cheese before we know it. So this month as you have seen on previous posts I have been pretty busy preparing the buildings for the health centre. Didimus and I spent a few solid days painting making 2 of the rooms now usable. Here is a before and after of the main hall, soon I hope to post after photos of the whole building.

Before


After

The builder is currently working, we had to get a second builder as the first bought 2 bags of cement built a small wall then disappeared with one full bag of cement - grrr. So it has taken a few weeks to find a new more trustworthy builder who is working hard. Once he has finished we have a little more painting to do then soft furnishing and furniture and equipment to sort out. We aim to open on 2nd April with a dedication service on 25th March. The church has moved into the hall so we have more space.

I have run my second and third HIV educators' seminars, one to the general public a group of 13 and the other in the prison to a group of wardens. I am enjoying the teaching especially when I get an interactive group and we can have some great discussions. I have also held follow up meetings for the first seminar I held to see what they had been doing. Only 5 came but each was able to tell me what they had done since the course. I was impressed they had run seminars or talked in small groups, visited their village and held a meeting. This made me very pleased to see my efforts are paying off and the message is spreading as we hoped.

Joe is in quite a routine with his work now, he has run his third web design course but only had one student so it was pretty intense. We have quite a few lined up for the next course so hopefully there will be a better number of students. He is also writing a photoshop course which will run between each web design course. This pretty much means he will be teaching something all the time until we leave now, maybe with a few sanity breaks to give him time to tinker on the web site.

I have also been arranging my replacement, I was getting worried that the health centre would open just a few months before we depart meaning it would be difficult to keep it going once I leave. However a friend of mine from my hospital in Oxford was planning on volunteering and having difficulty finding a job, so I suggested she came here to continue my work. She accepted so in May Helen will be arriving. Which is funny because we have had all the same jobs in our nursing career from the beginning, just a year apart. Also she took my post over from me when I left so we will be swapping and I will continue in Oxford from where she leaves - how neat and tidy!