Cliff Top Trekking

The cliff we trekked up and across the top of!

The past week has been a week of ups and downs, but primarily ups and was capped off walking way up to the tops of the Mbingo Cliffs about 40 mins away from Bamenda.

Tuesday was Labour Day here so we had the day off, but Monday was also considered a public holiday so we had a half day at SAJOCAH and finally felt like we had a handle on how we are making the wheelchair adaptations. So on Tuesday we went down to Commerical Ave for the march to celebrate Labour Day. The march consisted of pretty much every labour group, organization, business, ministry etc marching together. Each group either wore printed tshirts recognizing their organization or, my favourite, dresses and shirts made out of matching, colourful, printed fabric that had their organziation's name and/or logo on it. Such a colourful parade with people excited to be representing who they work for and no floats or sponsors were needed. Favourite group might have been Les Brasseries du Cameroon which makes the beer Castel. When they marched past the dignitaries in the grandstand (we stood directly across the street from this) they all popped the lids of and chugged back their bottles of Castel. I also enjoyed the bakeries that marched and threw fresh bread out when they got to the end of the route (although we stayed back from that as we had heard quite a few injury stories from people scrabbling to get the food!). After the march everyone here pretty much parties with their colleagues and families moving from one restaurant/bar/house to the next for the rest of the day. We on the other hand took it easy and I think had omlette and irish that night (1 of 3 times last week).

Working on the wheelchair

Wednesday and Thursday we were back at SAJOCAH and were able to complete the back and seat cushions for the wheelchair. It felt pretty good to finally have something to show for all the work and brainstorming we have done so far, even though it has taken much more of my time than I wanted or expected it to. In the afternoons we ran our first therapeutic play groups. The focus was on children with upper extremity impairments to use different play modalities to encourage and facilitate more functional use of their upper extremity. One group had children with one arm with limited or no current function and the other group had children with upper extremity coordination difficulties. We used the same activities for each group with a focus on art using drawing with crayons and modeling clay or silly putty. It was so much fun working and playing with the kids, but challenging at the same time. Each child progresses even within one group session at such different rates from the next child and all of the children came into the group with differing abilities. Some of the children also presented challenges to Sara and I's planning and creativity with either their personality (being very protective of their upper extremity that is weaker) or cognitive challenges. We realized we had to make some adjustments and that a group setting was not the best for all of the children  initially selected to be a part of the group. This week we will apply our adjustments and continue to reflect and learn from the experience to ideally find an optimal upper extremity play group protocol that could be continued at SAJOCAH after we leave.Wednesday night we went to Saint Sylvester's for dinner for Mr. Julius's birthday who turned his former age plus 1.

Friday we were back at CIS (Centre for Inclusion Studies which is the new name for BCCSDR). A slightly frustrating day as we did not have internet basically the entire day. Now I knew coming that internet was not always a guarantee and if I was here travelling I would not mind in the least if the internet didn't work. But being here on placement and having work and research to do, having no internet to do that research is a bit of a challenge. It does make me think about times when I didn't have the internet to complete research projects or look up information. All of you young ones reading this (you know who you are!) will probably laugh at me but even in undergrad I remember going to the library to take out books and articles. Yes the internet did exist then, but I still used the library as it had more to offer than the internet. Crazy to think how quickly that has changed and how reliant everyone and everything is on the internet. But I was able to get some work done and Friday night we went to dinner with Mr. Julius, his friend who is a court translator for the UN in Rwanda, and Lynn. Again it was a great dinner of roasted fish, irish, plantains and vegetable.

Saturday I needed to do something. I was not about to spend another weekend or day waiting around for the computer and not having anything planned. But this can be hard to do when somethings are not recommended for me to go off and do by myself (Sara needed to get caught up on some work). But I did what I could and went for a walk in the neighbourhood. Previously I had just walked around the main streets that lead to and from our place to the main road for taxi's, omelette and walking to the Ntarinkon market. This time I took a few of the dirt rounds around our house and it was so nice just to be by myself with only the sound of my feet hitting the dirt, wind in the trees and cicadas in the grass. One of the biggest adjustments I have had to make since coming here was not having time to myself and not being able to just go out on my own whenever and where ever I feel like it. But the 30 minute walk did the trick and it is nice now knowing a bit more about the neighbourhood! Saturday night we went to dinner with Ruth, Andrea (from Switzerland) and Karoline (PT from Belgium with us at SAJOCAH). Back to Saint Sylvester's we went (good thing I like the food there). Another great meal before Lynn, Leo, Patrick and Marcel joined us before we all went to Dreamland Cabaret for our first nightlife experience. We had only planned to stay until about midnight since we had big plans for Sunday and it turned out Dreamland was not nearly as  busy as usual. But getting a taxi after 9 is almost impossible so we didn't end up leaving until 12:30 maybe. I know that doesn't sound late at all, but when you've been going to bed around 10 every night my eyes could barely stay open by 12:30. We did dance a little bit but have promised to go out another night to really see what Bamenda nightlife is!

Our guide Godwin and I

Sara, Karoline and I on the top of the Cliff

And now on to Sunday which I can safely say has been the BEST day since arriving here. We booked a guide through a ecotourism and development group called BERUDEP and set out for a Cliff Top Trek in Mbingo (where we visited the hospital our first weekend here). Karoline joined Sara and I and we had a fantastic guide named Godwin. I'm not sure words can do the trek justice. We trekked for about four, maybe five hours up, across and down the cliff. The side we were trekking on had lush greenery, trees, a few houses, cows and some waterfalls, yet directly on the other side was a sheer rockface. When we finally reached the peak of the cliff it was breathtaking and after taking pictures I took a few minutes to just take it all in without the camera. Like I said before I don't really know what words to use to describe it and the feeling of looking out over the cliff top. It rained a little bit on the way down but it was refreshing after what had been a very hot trek that left me with quite the sunburn on my shoulders (despite spf sixty sunscreen!).

Favourite moment of the trip so far: Looking out over the cliff

It is half way through the official placement part of our trip and I can not believe our time here has gone by so quickly...wishing it would slow down and we could have more time to both work at SAJOCAH and CIS and travel the areas near us (just 2 weekends left in Bamenda and 3 more weeks of work)! Lots of exciting things planned for this week since Sara and I decided there is no time to waste but I am looking forward to my first home cooked dinner in over a week tonight!