Girls Education Conference

The Girl's Education Conference (Or is it Girls'?  I'm apostrophically confused.) is right around the corner:  this Sunday at 13h at the Salle Polyvalente de la Commune de Lagdo.  You should come if you're in the area.  Here's what has been up with the preparations:

 

Harvard and I changed the name of the darn thing, that's the first thing we did.  It used to be a "moto tour", but since there are actually no motos involved during any part of the traveling between Ngong and Lagdo, someone in Yaoundé changed it to a Girls Education "Caravan".  This, to me, conjures up images of crossing the desert or plowing through Indian jungles on elephants, but there will be no animals involved except for the stray pig or goat that walks by the building.

 

Besides innocuous details like the name, a lot of tedious protocol has been the ordre du jour the last couple of weeks.  Yotti and I have been presenting letters to the sous-prefet, mayor, high school principal, and local doctor to participate in the event.  What we want them to do is to have each give a speech on the importance of girls' education.  The first three are all d'accord, and I think the sous-prefet, being new and wanting to impress the white people, is especially looking forward to it, but the doctor for the whole arrondissement was down in Douala picking up a car he shipped from Europe, so I'll find out in the next two days if he or someone else at the hospital will speak.  (He was in Belgium for the last year working on some public health university program.)

 

With the high school principal, in addition to speaking, we've also asked him to help distribute and collect surveys meant for female students about their educational experiences.  Given that the proviseur doesn't have the best reputation, at least in my mind, I was surprised when he volunteered that he or someone on the staff would get the surveys done.  I don't want to jinx anything yet, so I won't be too happy about it until the completed surveys are in my hand.  The results of the surveys will be collated by me and presented at the event by Yotti.

 

There are a few more details to iron out.  Harvard and I have to make advertisements to print out and distribute; these ads will be flyers, and the Lagdo mayor said he would make copies and post them around town.  In addition to the mayor's help, I'll probably do the same myself if I don't see anything by Thursday.  Continuing with the mayor's aid, I have to confirm that the community contribution aspect of the project that M. le Maire agreed to a month ago is still good.  Thirdly, Harvard and I have to lockdown a female speaker, who attended university, hopefully one who has graduated, that can speak Saturday and Sunday.  (Saturday the same program is in Ngong with the grands of that village.)  Our original speaker that we wanted had to go and be in her third trimester, so Amadou at the Peace Corps Garoua office is exploring his Rolodex to help us out.  If that doesn't work, there is an elementary school principal I'm acquaintances with who can do it, even if she didn't really graduate.  Lastly, I have to order some food for the grands and invitees, a necessity at Cameroonian fetes, and really, fetes in general.

 

I guess there are a bunch of things to do this last week, which is to be expected.  You can't really plan too far in advance for events here in Cameroon, which to an American used to rigid schedules and details, details, details, gives me a case of anxiety for the days leading up to an event.  Everything falls into place, though, and I can rest assured that despite the 13h00 starting time, the mayor and sous-prefet won't show up until after the 13h30 prayer.  I hope to post pictures and a recap of the event in the next 10 days or so, so hang tight and enjoy the fact that Obama is your president until then.  (Barry, I'm available December 13^th, so give me a call then.)