My second home

I have now been in Cameroon for a little over 9 months, and every once in a while, it occurs to me that I have truly adapted more and more to this life. For one, when it finally starts to rain and you are really happy because you now have water to use for your flush latrine, you realize that thought is pretty new. Afterall, I certainly never thought that when it rained in New York. Or when you begin to wear pagne (an African fabric) as tie skirts with your head covered.... definitely a new style, and you start using fulfulde words in every day conversation, including English speaking volunteers.

In terms of traveling, things are a little different then in the States. I realized fairly recently that it has become a bit more normal for me to see, for instance, a chicken in the drivers seat. Also, when I was on a bus and we reached a line of 8 other buses all waiting to cross a river that formed over night, this was far from a surprise. I just gathered my things, found a nice rock to sit on outside (it says a lot about your seat when you prefer a rock), and got my book out. Personally, always traveling with a book is the trick to staying sane. Then our bus that isn't in the best of shape to begin with, manages to cross this river that actually has little rapids. Impressive. Although, sometimes things continue to surprise me during my travels. Another bus bumped our bus on the road while I was distracted looking out the window searching for monkeys (which I found by the way, success). During this search, the window that got bumped exploded, scattering glass everywhere. If I was sitting by that window I would have probably at least screamed a little, however the guy who was sitting in that spot simply shrugged as a response to my horrified "are you alright"s and said not a problem, I am use to this. The bus barely stopped and nobody mentioned it. I found the whole experience really bizarre.

On another note, I had another "I'm truly adapting" thought when I arrived at my house after getting a few drinks with my postmate, to find an awesome gift waiting for me. A black plastic bag filled with raw meat. My coworker had recently slaughtered an animal and was kind enough to give me some for free. I was a little buzzed and had never prepared freshly slaughtered meat before by myself, but I knew that if I didn't do something about it that night the precious gift would go bad. So, I sat on my floor next to my petrol lamp and got to work preparing the meat. After an hour of trying to cut off the fat and bad parts, it was already fairly late and I was no longer as excited about this gift. Peeling the grass off the meat I had finished, I decided to just fry it all and then deal with it in the morning. But I did have the passing thought that you know you're adapting to African life when you come back from getting beers with a friend and find raw cow hide on your porch, and you spend an hour while buzzed preparing it by lantern light. Gotta love it.

You can never predict what a day will be life here. You can try to make a schedule, but odds are it won't happen exactly like you wanted. I woke up one Saturday morning, and immediatly tried to figure out how the hell I'd fill my day. Fortunately for me, one of the kids in my concession knocked on my door by 9 am and tells me that my postmate is back from the States, that he is with his sister and heading to see the waterfalls with the delegate of tourism, so if I want to join I have to hurry because they're leaving now. So I quickly change out of my tie skirt and into caprees and join my postmate and another volunteer (his "sister", every white person is related apparently). We hop on this van filled to the brim with fairly important men all ready to see the waterfalls. Once we arrived we hiked for around a half hour to arrive at this huge, majestic, gorgeous waterfall. It was truly breathtaking. After bouncing around the rocks and taking in the sights, we had to make the hike back, which wasn't as easy sincei t was uphill and in the heat of midday. However, it was nice to see that I wasn't alone in my exhaustion haha. Most of the men were men who worked in the offices, who hired others to do their work for them, expecially an manual labor. Afterwards, they gave us delicious food, and of course tea even though it was boiling outside. Piling back into the car, my postmate described it the best saying that it resembled a basketball team heading home after playing a game. Everyone was loud, talkative and happy for the first half, and dead tired the second. This was cured by more beers upon our arrival back in Djohong, food, and a soccer match. A pretty solid day considering I woke up not knowing what the day would bring.


Its not always occurances like these, the ones that would never happen in the States, that remind me of how different my life has become but that I've adapted despite it. The realization also happens after I leave my village and come back to find that I'm coming back to a family. Upon my most recent arrival to my village, I had my kitten sprinting to me and several of the children racing over to give me hugs. Many people with huge smiles saying welcome in fulfulde (Jabbama), and my good friends saying that the 6 days I was gone was too long. Though my village can drive me a little crazy, it is also my second home.

Sorry, I know that I kind of rambled, but I wanted to write a quick blog since it has been a while. Hope everyone is doing well, see you soon- August!