I’ve now been in Kolofata for five months, and I suppose it’s time for a real update. I’m currently in Maroua for the weekend to go to the bank and to help clean the transit house – I spent the morning standing on chairs and bunk beds to clean our ceiling fans (I really miss climbing things), while other people cleaned the storage shed, mopped, cleaned the water filters, dug a hole for compost, and other things. We played a bunch of music that reminded me of college. Good times.

So, it’s now May – hot season. It’s gotten up to 120 degrees some days. I just drink tons of cold water from my fridge and take a lot of naps. But, I also experienced rain for the first time in Kolofata! It was magical. There was actually a thunderstorm, and the power was out for six miserable days. On the bright side, my marche is overfilled with delicious, cheap mangoes. They’re incredibly sweet and juicy. I eat at least two or three a day, even though my neighbors insist that this year’s mangoes aren’t as good as in the past or as good as in other parts of Cameroon.

Work has been picking up. I am still regularly doing animations (health presentations)  twice a week for patients and their families at my hospital. Back in March, I went en brousse to do animations a few more times with my counterpart. And about once a week, I work with one of the administrators at our hospital and teach him about Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint.

After I got back from our In-Service Training Conference at the beginning of April, I’ve also been spending a lot more time at the Women’s Center. The Women’s Center started holding classes on topics ranging from embroidery to literacy. I’m teaching two classes – one on health and one on computers. In my health class so far, I’ve taught women how to make soy milk and another class on making soy bouillie, while discussing nutrition. In the computer class, I’ve been teaching women basic things, like how to use a mouse and how to use Microsoft Word. And I installed a typing program that we got during Peace Corps training on all three of the computers, and the women are learning how to type.

I also decided to take two classes – one on knitting and one on cooking – in order to get to know some women in my village and to just have something fun to do. The knitting class is taught by Asta, wife of one of the nurses, and I’ve been getting to know their family after Asta invited me over for lunch. Asta let me help prepare millet couscous, and a week later, when I was sitting around talking to some women, one person told me that they had heard that une blanche had been preparing couscous – I guess word gets around fast in Kolofata! (Back in December, I used to be the only foreigner in my village besides Dr. Ellen and Myra, but our hospital often hosts visiting medical students, residents, and doctors from the US, Canada, and France.)

So, cookies. I’ve realized that this is my second post on cookies. I just love how cooking brings people together. Some of my best memories with the people I was closest to involve preparing food together, and I can recall a laundry list of delicious foods – Moroccan stew, ratatouille, Vietnamese spring rolls, quinoa, red velvet cake, chocolate chip cookies…

Anyway, one week, I baked peanut butter cookies for some women at the Women’s Center, and they asked me to show them how to prepare it in a future class. We didn’t have any peanut butter at the time, so we made sugar cookies instead.

Step 1: Prepare cookie dough.

The women seemed a bit surprised that I would 1) bring my own measuring cups and spoons from the US and 2) actually measure things in the first place, since, whenever I’ve watched people cook, it always seems to involve estimating quantities. Here’s the recipe I used, courtesy of the Peace Corps Guinea cookbook, Where There is No Restaurant:

2 cups flour
½ tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
2/3 cup butter
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg

Stir 1 cup flour, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl.  Combine the butter, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl and beat until light.  Beat in egg.  Slowly add the flour mixture, beating until smooth.  Mix in enough flour to make workable dough.  Roll out.  Cut into desired shapes.  Sprinkle with sugar.  Bake 10-13 minutes. (Obviously, we just formed balls of dough rather than cutting into shapes.)

Step 2: Fill a marmite partway with sand. Start the fire to pre-heat the marmite. Place dough on flat surface. Place flat surface inside marmite. Cover the marmite.

Step 2.5: Obligatory photoshoot with adorable children.

Step 3: Wait.

Step 4: Remove cookies. Eat.

I guess you may be asking, “Gee, what do baking sugar cookies have to do with your job as a community health educator?” The answer? Nothing. In fact, sugar cookies would be the complete opposite of being healthy.

Nevertheless, I’m glad I did it. Besides the fact that I had fun, I really want to continue getting to know the people in my community. When I was in college, I loved working with the same, meaningful non-profits, whether it was once a week or once a semester, since I got to form relationships with people over time. Relationship building is important, and I’m hoping that it’ll lead to something, even though I am not exactly sure what that is right now.