Yesterday, December 1, was International AIDS Day, one of the more important and heavily funded of the "international" celebrations that pop up everyday. Personally, I find most international day celebrated here as a waste of time and money, mainly a racket for fabric-makers to sell their pagne. My least favorites are Teacher Day, which is only a month into the official school year where teachers get a day off to sport their ugly pagne and go to Garoua and get drunk; and Women's Day, which sees women allowed out of their daily housework by their husbands to go and get drunk before business as usual the next day. (Women's Day note: Despite being "international," Cameroon's fete is March 8 - happy birthday, Mom, en avance - while other West African countries choose different days.) AIDS Day is a lot more legit than the other holidays, and it's right up a PCV's alley: a bien etabli day dedicated to a major motivating factor for my joining the PC in the first place. People are motivated for AIDS Day, including health workers... kinda, which is saying something, and the health club at the high school even asked me in advance to give a presentation on the big day. Before I pay myself on the back and give a heartwarming tale about what I saw, let me give a little recap about my lovely time with the health club.
My working with them has been non-existent except for two okay meetings during the summer, which saw 10 kids come to the first meeting, 3 at the second, then 1 at the 3rd. I told myself to wait until the school year started. Of course, last spring during the school year I had no luck with them because they would invite me to meetings either 45 minutes before and even 30 minutes after one had started, expecting me to have something ready to present. I declined and asked them to let me know at least a day before to get something ready, but it started to be exam time, so I never ahd a chance to have a meeting with them until the summer, when I actually had control over meeting time and place.
The new school year brought the same silliness. First, it took them until November to have the first meeting, and then they spent the next two meetings electing the club's cabinet ("bureau" in French, furniture-centric no matter the language), even having an "external affairs" post, which skyrockets the ridiculous importance Cameroonians place on protocol and having a title to farcical levels. (Seriously, though, the guy they choose for Interior Minister is a real dick.) This second meeting I was invited to, and they said to come to the soccer stadium at 4. I went thinking they were just using it as a central location, but when I got there, there were at least 50 dudes lounging around waiting for a game to start. Not really conducive to a health club meeting, so I just left grumbling under my breath like Fred Flintstone.
Two weeks ago they asked to come to another meeting two hours in advance through my postmate - getting better, guys - but I was en brousse and couldn't go. Then finally, this last Monday the foreign affairs dude and the president gave me a whole 5 days warning before AIDS day, Allah be praised. I was worried when I asked them what they wanted me to do exactly and who was going to be at the meeting (if it's just high school kids, they know all about SIDA deja and I'd have to think of something new) and all they could say was basically to buy them soda and condoms (two ingredients to a real party) like a couple PCVs did last year. I was ticked, but I said I'd do an animation, sans cadeaux, no problem, just tell me when and where. Come December 2, I'm still waiting to know those important bits of info.
So, I spent my AIDS day waiting for the kids who didn't show and reading Vanity Fair (the novel) like any PCV should. I don't think bluntly refusing to give them things was the main reason, this casual forgetfulness is kinda a pattern and they are just high school kids, so you have to cut them some slack. I can play a larger role with the health club, lord knows the teacher that's in charge won't care, but I've been busy with other stuff the last month or two, which I'll get to on my next post.
