Thursday, January 29

In the morning Ruth and Barb and I visited a bilingual elementary school in Douala. Ruth had arranged for us to take letters from students at Show Low Elementary School in Arizona to children at this school. The director, an amazing woman who started this private school many years ago, took us on a tour. We were impressed with the “extras” she had there over the public schools we have seen. The facilities and equipment were much better. In each classroom we were introduced, and in each one the children sang us a song in English including several songs that we knew. I asked the older children if they knew who the president of the United States is. They always did. In several cases a child would stand beside his or her desk and say very precisely, “His Excellency Barak Obama.”

After lunch Joe joined us and we took a road trip. First we went to the village of Kotto-Up and distributed food bags. Once again we saw that in the villages the powers that be need to know who you are and what you are doing there. Joe and Barb and I sat in the shade on the front porch of a home and watched Ruth and the WEH staff work so effectively with the people. When we gave children our “Yes we Can” pencils, Ruth made sure that they remembered to say, “Thank you.” Many spoke English as in this village there tend to be newcomers from the northern Anglophone areas of Cameroon. Then we drove to the northern most reach of WEH's region of responsibility to Penja. While there we visited a hospital which hosts an AIDS community in a portion of its facilities. These are people who, for whatever reason, frequently ostracism, can no longer live in their villages. We left food bags for WEH's orphans there. I talked to several lovely teenage girls. Knowing that they are receiving retrovirals, I encouraged them to have hope for the future and to study hard. I talked about Obama saying, “Yes we can.” Once again we came home long after night had fallen.