Nassarao et Pitoa

I wanted to write a few short notes about our two training towns for the parents back home!
Nassarao, where the agroforestry trainees are living and training is a small Muslim village. It is very close too Garoua, probably about 7 km. Many peolple call it a suburb of Garoua. In my head, it is very similar to (pre shopping center) Forest Lakes Subdivision to Charlottesville....same distance and in the same way, there is not much in Nassarao other than houses. For instance, there is a tiny tiny market, but there's nowhere really to buy bottled water. There are a couple of bars which are occasionally open, for the non-Muslims in the town. It is a beautiful little village, with a light yellow mosque at the center of town. The town hub/center is the mosque, chefferie, and school, and they form the inner circle, and six roads lead off from there, like spokes on a wheel. So it is more circular rather than grid-like.

Pitoa is much much larger, and it should probably be a health trainee writing about it, since don't live there, and don't spend as much time there. It is 10 km from Nassarao in the other direction from Garoua, and the drive there is beautiful, with mountains on the one side and fields all around. The town seems to be more grid-like, with roads on perpendicular lines. There is a very large market there on Sundays, which I only went to once or twice. Pitoa is not predominantly muslim. So there are pigs running around, quite a few more bars, (which I know our friends in Pitoa enjoy!) and a little more commerce, little boutiques to buy things, like frozen, yes I said frozen, bottled water.

Both our training centers are houses, with kitchens, some rooms our language trainers and tech trainers live in, and bathrooms. Most of our tech classes are at our respective training center, but we do have combined sessions, such as health sessions, safety and security, some combined tech sessions, which are mostly in Pitoa, but sometimes in Nassarao. We have a general meeting in Pitoa every Thursday, followed by a soccer or frisbee game all together, trainers too. It's definitely good to have as a destresser! As it is, I wish that we had had more opportunity to spend time together, more sessions together, but such is life. I really enjoyed riding my bike between Pitoa and Nassarao for a while when I went there for langauge sessions. Beautiful ride.