Week 9: Betrayal…and statistics!

Week 9: Betrayal…and statistics!

Week 9 started for me innocently enough. A less than notable weekend was marked only by the early return of Martiel from his aunt’s with a young cousin in tow. They visited with me briefly on Sunday, and we made plans to spend Monday together.

Monday morning we all met up together and set off to take a tour of Dschang’s health services, including a half dozen clinics and the district health center. My wingmen ran out of steam at our second stop (the cousin being 3 years old it was understandable), but I continued on through the bulk of the afternoon, arranging to meet with the chief district health officer and collecting statistics from the bulk of the clinics where available. Later that evening I got together for a drink with Alice, and met her fellow countryman Antoine, who works in a local government development capacity with the mayor’s office. He has promised to help me make some introductions to the municipal water works council.

Tuesday morning I discovered that Martiel had stolen half of my money while I was in the bathroom, and directly hightailed it to his Aunt’s house in the neighboring village of Kekem. Ouch. I took my suspicions to the Nana’s and set out in hot pursuit with Valerie at my side. At the end of the day, we returned with the culprit in hand, minus about half of the purloined funds. To make matters worse, it would seem that Martiel is not the only individual I’ve welcomed into my house that has stolen from me, as there still appears to by still about 100 bucks missing from my coffers, minus what Martiel took. I’ve got my suspicions, but there’s not much I can do about it, the situation is unfortunate to say the least.

Though I missed my Tuesday meeting with the district chief, I made up for the wasted day by heading to the Catholic hospital on Wednesday to meet with Alice and examine the records on waterborne disease. The hospital is managed by a group of French nuns and is far and above the largest, best equipped and most professional health establishment here in Dschang. After meeting with the hospital director and lab supervisor I arranged to return the next day for a tour of the lab and a chance to go through the available records. In returning to town I profited from the opportunity to cut cross country and take in some of the beautiful countryside, further acquainting myself with the lay of the land around Dschang and stopping by the hospital Ad Lucem to arrange a rendez vous with the head doctor.

Walking through the field you come across these fetish bags that people put up around their fields to keep theives and bad spirits away

You also find these little huts that traditional western Cameroonian families use to house the exhumed skulls of their ancestors

Thursday I returned to the sisters’ hospital and spent the day pouring through the lab results and noting results associated with contaminated water supplies. By the end of the day I was finished with January 2008; one month down, how many to go we shall see. That evening I met with Alice for a drink before she took off for a holiday weekend. As Friday is a religious holiday, my chances of accomplishing any official business are limited, with civil (and religious) servants taking the day off.

As it was, I still managed to spend the day semi-productively, processesing some samples for the benefit of the benefit of a helpful grad student Richard in the geography department at the University of Dschang. Next week I should be wrapping up the preliminary epidemiological research and heading to Baffoussam to look into purchasing an incubator (the sisters' hospital has a great model and gave me some useful contacts).

One of Richard's samples, don't drink the water in Bamenda!

Week 7 wrap up and Week 8

Week 7 etc. or Continued puttering about town

Monday I zapped the ameebs with a single shock dose of the paracide flagycil. Valerie dropped by the apartment for a bit and taught me a Cameroonian gambling card game, "fap fap," which apparently is a favorite of marketplace hustlers. No Cameroonian I've yet met knows how to properly shuffle, and the preferred method of rapid deck cutting allows a considerable bit of funny business as Valerie demonstrated. Today also marked Matt's departure, so in search of some company I tracked down David and together we dickered around town, stopping by the University to pursue my incubator.

Tuesday was chicken cooking day. I arranged with Clemence to come to the apartment and teach me how to prepare the Cameroonian specialty of chicken with peanut sauce. This is no small feat, and even with the efforts of Clemence and me as well as Mireme, who had tagged along for the fun of it, the meal took most of the day to prepare. Though chicken is my meat of choice stateside, I think I'll be looking for a substitute here in Cameroon. A medium sized chicken costs about 6 bucks, which is pretty reasonable, but the real issue lies in the fact that when you buy a chicken, you buy them live. In the end the slaughter, plucking and butchering was quite interesting, if time consuming, and the finished product was delish. We sat ourselves down to a fine meal, and a post dinner laptop viewing of the 80's classic "Some Kind of Wonderful," dubbed in French quelle magnefique.


Wednesday I felt a bit down and as it was raining all day I spent the duration indoors. Thursday I was feeling a bit back on top and made it around to the Nana's where I got the chance to meet some cousins of the family and Papa Nana's brother-in-law. Friday I stopped by Rosinne's at her request and was hit up for a loan. I must have passed some invisible threshold here in Cameroon, crossing the line from the indeterminate status of mild acquaintance and guest to something of a more solid relationship zone that involves requests for money, as this in not the first loan that has been solicited from me in the past week. Perhaps I should be complimented, financial assistance is a family and close friend oriented business here in Cameroon; and here I am doling out favors and contemplating Soprano-esque collection schemes.

Saturday I hit up the bank machine to take care of this loan, and found myself in a panic over my perceived receipt of a number of counterfeit bills courtesy of the ATM. I spent most of the day preoccupied by this issue of questionable bills, calling up what police and government officials I've befriended and searching for some authentication, a difficult task given the fact that power was out all day. I finally managed to put the issue aside, collecting myself in time to receive an encouraging visa-related call from the US embassy in Yaoundé, and a short visit to the apartment by Papa Nana and a teacher colleague.

Sunday is quickly becoming my favorite day of the Cameroonian week. The morning false- started at about 5am with a couple of early calls from Rosinne's husband Wilfried. Though in my sleep-addled state I did not deign to answer these abnormally early calls, but instead silenced my phone, soon after waking a bit of thought lead me to conclude that only the birth of Rosinne's baby could justify such unusual behavior! My suspicions were further strengthened when later that afternoon all calls to immediate family members garnered no response.

But as for my Sunday, after a leisurely breakfast engaged in the perusal of the last few days New York Times Digests, I went on a run and stopped by the cyber. There I met a French aid worker, Alice, affiliated with the Catholic missions and assisting in the accounting department of the local Catholic hospital, a sizable institution whose cooperation I am actively seeking in my research into the incidence of water-borne disease, a serendipitous meeting to say the least. She and I arranged to meet up that evening to discuss my project a bit and we ended up having a lovely time, before I was obliged to jet off to the Nanas' to offer my congratulations on the birth.

Week 8: Everyday I'm hustlin' Monday August 4, 2008

Baby Evira at a week old

Lindsay had big plans to head back to Dschang to see the baby, but experienced a slight setback with her contraction of a mild case of malaria in Kribe. Though she was soon back up on her feet and in fine health, the cancellation of her expected visit put me in the position of breaking the news to the various family members, and wrapping up a few loose ends. Most of the day was spent preparing for Linds' departure and taking a gander at the new kid.

Proud Mom

Tuesday I hit the ground running, meeting with the head doctor at the Hopital Centrale to arrange for the collection of some patient data. Then it was off to Kelang to take a long postponed tour of the mountain spring house and gravity-fed distribution system. It was quite impressive, the principles and construction are relatively basic, and absolutely undersell the benefit this system has brought to the village of Kelang and neighboring communities in Bafou. The spring source is even used by the central hospital to augment their SNEC-provided tap water and provide a backup supply in the event of power outage.

After coming back from my tour of the Kelang system, I met up with a former U Dschang masters student who has executed the most recent study of the city's water quality. She was able to provide me with a few digital copies of some of the graphics published in her thesis as well as some additional data on well locations that was not included in the initial draft of which I have a copy.

Wednesday I headed back to the Hospital Central where I spent most of the day with an intern combing through the hospital registers for the past several months, recording all instances of water-borne disease. It was my first real experience with public health data, or anything truly medical in nature and it was quite interesting. There is a wealth of data in these registers, even though it has only been this past year that the hospital has begun recording the diagnoses of incoming patients instead of just symptoms. Still there is much that could learned, from public health issues like water quality to additional social issues like incidence of violent crime or automobile related injuries. These registers are a repository of useful information and unfortunately are severely underutilized, though the hospital does appear to be compiling monthly malaria statistics for unknown ends.

After finishing up at the hospital I stopped by SNEC to make arrangements with the patron to take a tour of the treatment and distribution system on Friday, and picked up a letter of introduction and support from the head of the University's biology department addressed to the Mayor of Dschang, who, rumor has it, has a history of expressed interest and execution in water resource and quality management for Dschang (his office was in large part responsible for the funding of Kelang's spring system).

Thursday I buzzed around town a bit, certifying a copy my newest letter, shopping for a big spaghetti dinner and attempting to track down a Professor Fonteh, head of water resources research for the University's department of agronomy and agriculture. It wasn't until Friday that I finally got ahold of him, but it was a very fruitful meeting and I've now a fresh stack of relevant masters theses to comb through over the next few weeks. And this wealth of new reading material arrived on the heels of a most fascinating tour of the water treatment and distribution system for SNEC. My guide was quite knowledgeable, and was able to provide answers to almost all of my questions on flow rates and treatments.

The water for Dschang comes from riverine sources in the foothills outside the city. Two-thirds of the supply is processed at a 28 yr-old facility constructed by the Belgians that appears largely to be in good working order, though the accuracy of this initial assessment rests on as yet unperformed analysis. The remaining 1/3 is processed at an ancient and considerably more dilapidated station constructed by the French in 1957. The principles of their treatment methods seem quite solid, and the only real uncertainties for me rest in the consistency and potency of the chlorination treatment and in the ability of the sand-based filtration components to filter out the larger but more chlorine-resistant pathogenic protozoa like Giardia, Cryptosporidium and amoebas.

The ancient French built treatment plant

The arrangement of the distribution set up involves a central juncture of the two sources before entering the city proper, where the distribution network then branches out to countless home faucets along a dozen or more secondary distribution lines. The accessibility of this pre-distribution collection point is ideally suited for a comprehensive sampling program, and should enable the relative isolation of contamination sources stemming from within the distribution network itself, i.e., post treatment.

The newer Belgian built treatment plant, processing over 2/3 the city's supply

All in all the tour excited me with the possibilities for real research gains. I toasted the day's progress later that evening with Lindsay's good friend officer Adamou over a dinner of spaghetti (…again, I've got to start cooking in smaller quantities). It was a great evening, for maybe the first time since arriving here I really got lost and involved in a conversation with a Cameroonian, in French no less. The evening got real, and I guess I hadn't noticed how much that possibility was absent from my day-to-day interactions until it was staring me in the face. What a pleasure and what a milestone moment for the language skills, though the uncommon facility of our interrelation is at least equally responsible.