Sink or swim

It is difficult to describe to people what my life is like and what my days consist of, because it is similar to someone from Cameroon asking what life is like in the States. Where do you begin? That's why I like to just tell little stories that I hope together encompass my general experience as a volunteer in Cameroon. One aspect of my expereince that I get questions about often is work. What do I do over here? How do I fill my days? When it comes to work, the French and Fulfulde aspect makes it a little difficult. For the most part, I have no problem speaking in front of people, but I feel more uncomfortable since I don't feel that my language abilities are that great yet. So, I learned that sometimes a person has to throw you in the deep end to get you to learn how to swim.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting outside washing my dishes when I received a visitor. A tall, big boned woman, sporting long hair with bright red streaks stood in front of me and said she would like my help with a women's group. I invited her inside and took a seat. She is one of those people who have so much energy that when they talk their whole body seems to move or act it out. She stood in my tiny living room, sat down for a second, then jumped back up as she began to describe the women's group. I immediately knew that I would absolutely work with this group, its exactly what I had been looking for for a while. I let her talk for a bit though, and eventually she asked me if I have any ideas on how the group can make money. I gave her a little smile and was just like umm.... I don't know. Maybe making soap or bread and selling it? Bread actually seemed like a perfect idea, Djohong doesn't sell bread, but this cake-like bread that is a very poor subsitute. Bread would probably sell really well and the village would also benefit from it. She got very excited about this idea as well and basically sprinted out of my house yelling as she left to meet her at the office the following thursday.

So that Thursday I arrived at her office right before the women's group meeting. My red-streaked friend greets me with a huge hug, a handshake, and then asks if I was reay to help her with a forced marriage presentation. I just stared at her for a second and then told her that I wasn't exactly prepared. She laughed and said that of course I was, I know why its bad, so just tell the women. At that moment, she walks out the door to greet around 20 women who have been sitting and waiting for the meetin to begin. I just kept thinking what exactly I got myself into, again, when she started and told the women that she would begin the discussion and then I would take over. We had a translator present as well so the fulfulde speakers could understand, and they enthusiasticually introduced me to the group. I was trying to hide myself as best I could in the back, a nice trick I learned from classes at school, but unfortunately I stand out a little more over here and was easy to spot. I then just thought to myself, well here we go, too late to back out now. Surprisngly enough, the meeting was a big success. My colleague ended by telling the women that next week I would be teachng them out to make bread. I was happy that I survived the meeting, so didn't understand what she said until later. She repeated it to me once the women had left. I was a bit surprised. For one, i don't know how to make bread, so I saw a potential problem teaching others how to do it in French or Fulfulde. Two, I don't know how to make bread in the states with an actual oven.... I am far from a cook or a baker. i stuck to simple eggs, ramen, and pasta meals during college and have yet to stray too far from that path. Unfortunately, my friend wouldn't listen to me, so I had to figure out how to make bread well enough before I had to teach it.

The next week I had to go to Ngaoundere so I missed the meeting. When I arrived back in Djohong the women told me how excited they were to learn how to make bread the next day. The next day! shit, I had arrived on a wed, the meeting was on thursday. A day to learn how to make bread. Once again, somebody was throwing me into the deep end. Would I sink? Most definitely. Fortunately, there is one girl, a friend of mine, who does make bread in Djohong. It's not well known in the village, but I found out about her through a friend, and buy bread from her. After I told my crazy-hair friend that I really can't teach people how to do something I don't know how to do, she was convinced that maybe my baker-friend would be the better teacher.

Over 50 women showed up at this deomonstration. It was a HUGE success. We managed to find all the materials right in Djohong, proving to the women this was indeed possible, and they learned from a girl who makes delicious bread. The ovens consisted of large iron pots, with a dirt like substance inside. The pan with the dough is placed inside the pot, and the pot is over a fire. We had 3 fires going, so 3 ovens. The bread was delicious and many of the women came up to thank us for the demonstration.

So, sink or swim, it worked out. I am currently working on drawing out the recipes for the women who can't read, so maybe fairly soon,  I will see bread being sold on at the market on market day. You never know.

New faces and some not-so-new places

I have been enjoying a life with fairly constant electricity and running water for the past week. So I’ve been able to take wonderfully hot showers and use a toilet that flushes, talk to many people who I’ve been missing a bunch, and enjoy cold drinks out at a restaurant. To get to this city, however, is never the easiest thing to do. Traveling in this country never goes exactly right, a perfect example being when I was on a train for site visit and the train split in half, leaving my car behind. When this happened nobody reacted because its not unusual for something to happen to stop your travels, such as a train splitting in half.

After a nice, long prison bus ride for around 5 hours, I arrived in Meiganga. There is nothing like bonding with your fellow passengers as they use your shoulder as their headrest or your lap to hold their possessions. We all bonded even more once it started to rain. This is bizarre considering it very rarely rains during the dry season, like pretty much never. So we all exchanged quizzical looks that then turned to resigned Oh-well-nothing-I-can-do-about-it looks, and then myself and the fellow window passengers all got a nice shower. So after hanging out in such a fashion for a couple of hours, you hop off the car, everyone exchanges quick glances and smiles to acknowledge the wonderful ride you shared, and you part ways. It was pouring once I arrived, but since I was already soaking wet this didn’t really bother me. I wandered around aimlessly since my friends in Meiganga weren’t in the city yet, ate a delicious egg brunch, had my first cold drink in a month and then went to my friend’s house to relax and prep for the next leg of my journey.

A hot bucket bath, movie, good food, and a good night sleep later, I went back to the bus station. Surrounded by motos, stands selling things ranging from little trinkets to veggies, and just tons of people milling around who have nothing better to do, I fight threw the crowd listening to people say Nassara! Nassara! which means white person. I ignore this because acknowledging it does absolutely nothing. I get to an area with a few benches and at least 20 people standing or sitting around and look for a corner to hide myself until the bus gets here. The guy who reserves seats recognizes me and believes that my name is Helene. So upon arrival I hear Helene! Helene! pretty concerned he asks why I missed the early bus. i just explained that sometimes I like to sleep past 5 am and figured that it didn’t matter if I got on the slightly later bus at 10am. He agreed that this wasn’t a problem, so I plopped my stuff down, bought myself some beignets, sat on my moto helmet and took out my book. 5 minutes into it I notice this older woman wrapped in the traditional Fulbe attire staring at me intently. Once I looked at her and smiled, she gave me a hesitant smile and then looked away. This exchange is far from new, so I ignore it and continue reading. Though, once again I feel someone staring, so I look up and it was the same cute, little old woman. I smile, give a small wave, and say Sannu which is hello in fulfulde. She gives me a huge smile, turns her full body towards me and we then exchange the traditional salutations. I told her that I was going to Ngaoundere, she said something which I didn’t understand but assumed was that she was making the same trip. The fulfulde continued but I maxed out right after I said where I was going. So I gave her a confused smile shaking my head, however the old woman than took me under her wing. This was fortunate because I had no idea which bus was mine, since there isn’t an announcement or anything. She ushers me in front of her in line, sees a man sitting by a window and tells him to save me a seat next to him. I have no way of knowing thats exactly what she said, but I assumed after I got on the bus and the man shouted to everyone else to essentially help me crowd surf over them to get to him in the back row.

Finally, everyone was settled in the bus. I was next to a woman who didn’t acknowledge me at all and the man who saved my spot. With bags at my feet and my backpack on my lap, my moto helmet on the man’s lap, I got my toes in this little space on the floor, got my body positioned sideways with one shoulder forward and one shoulder behind the woman’s and settled down for another 5 hour ride. The man next to me loved the window, so it was wide open the whole way with his head hanging out. Considering the heat, this would be a great idea but every window passenger gets to decide the fate of the people next to them. Either their neighbors melt in the heat with a closed window or get covered in dust and leave the bus with asthma. My neighbor chose dirt and asthma, and then oddly enough, it rained again. So my neighbor then got to choose between heat and water. Of course he chose being wet, but unfortunately the rain didn’t last very long so we were shortly back to dust. With a bandana wrapped around my face, I stared at my neighbor truly amazed. How was it possible that the dirt wasn’t bothering him? He was a weird orange color due to the dust 3 hours into the ride, and I decided that he was either a badass or a moron. Shortly after this thought process the bus stopped so the driver can buy some avocados. My neighbor than hands me the moto helmet, thanks me for taking hold of my own helmet, and does a smooth dive out the window landing on his feet. After this James Bond-like move I came to the conclusion that he is in fact a badass.

Finally, I arrived in Ngaoundere, the capital city of my region. I can definitely say that the journey was worth it. I hung out with fellow volunteers who were all there for the regional meeting, arriving at the peace corps house in waves. Each person was so covered in dirt that they resembled oompa-loompas. The journey was worth it, but I do miss my village. I miss it enough to want to make the journey back, so that has to say something. Though, I’m convinced that you know you’re doing something right when everything you do, even a bus ride, can turn into a story.

Spiders, scorpions, and teaching

Hey everyone! As many of you know, I am a health volunteer here in Djohong and I’ve been in this village for around 2 months. One issue with being a health volunteer is that it’s not like if you’re an education volunteer and you’ve finished your training you are then a teacher. The village knows you are a teacher and recognizes you as such. Agro volunteer, similar thing, that once you finish your training you are then recognized as a person who works in the fields. As a health volunteer, I have been recognized as a doctor by many of the people in my village. This is not good for many reasons, a major one being that I am not a doctor. Far from it. So, though I have been trying to observe things, for a while I was mostly telling people that I am not a doctor, just a volunteer working with health. I personally can see how this would be difficult to understand at first. Despite this, i have been enjoying my time at the hospital and IMC immensely, though when a friend came to me asking for a favor I was happy to have something new to try.

My friend, Ibrahim who works as a tailor, came over to my house and asked me if I could assist him with his classes. I was pretty confused at first since he knows that I can’t sew and classes….for tailors? However, he quickly clarified and said he was now also working as an English teacher at the high school and said that my assistance would really be appreciated since he can’t speak English very well. I figured why not, I would just be helping, so I said yes and met him at his house the next morning so we could walk over together. We arrived just as a young teenage girl was banging a stick on a metal car rim that was hanging from a tree. The kids responded to this by running from all directions to get to class. Ibrahim and I also picked up our pace and arrived at our classroom. Ibrahim then asked me to wait as he went to go pick up his lesson book from the principal. I waited in front of the classroom as the kids all got a kick out of the new person in front of them. Once Ibrahim arrived the snickering and whispering stopped and he hurried over to me. Whispering to me, he explained that the lesson book is blank so he doesn’t know what he is suppose to do. He then proceeds to hand me the chalk and say ok well you have 2 hours with them, go ahead. I started laughing at this as I stared at the 40+ kids in the class and then back to the chalk in my hand. I thought about reminding him that I wasn’t a teacher, but then remembered that he wasn’t a teacher either. Then decided what the hell, this could be fun. So I spent the rest of the class attempting to teach English. Since then I have returned twice, one time with Ibrahim and another time with a different professor, and now plan to help Ibrahim with many of his classes. Now people think that I am a doctor, despite me telling everyone repeatedly that I’m not, and a teacher. Voila.

On a completely different note, I have slowly gotten use to the spiders and cockroaches who make appearances in my house, particularly at night. However, one new development stumped me. My flashlight died a while back and the batteries here don’t work very well with my flashlight from the States. So when I come home at night after dinner elsewhere, Caleb or Youssoufa usually walk me home. once I get home, I have to maneuver around things in the dark to find my candles or lantern. One night I found my candle and my matches, fumbled a bit but finally managed to light it, and right in front of me was an incredibly large spider. This was by far the biggest spider I have ever seen, and not only that, but it was hairy and fat. I jumped back with a small yelp when I first saw it and tried to decide what to do. After some quick thinking I went to my room, locked my door, changed very quickly into pjs and hopped into my bed under the protection of my mosquito net. This was kind of like when I found the scorpion in my bucket…. being too scared to kill it, I moved the bucket outside of my house and locked the door, like this would stop a tiny scorpion from crawling back in. However, my mind was put at ease. This spider was too big to come through my mosquito net and from my experience, the uglier, scarier things are usually gone in the morning. When I woke up I was relieved to see that I was right. Fortunately I have yet to encounter it again, though I’d like to think if I did I’d be a little more badass and just kill it. We’ll see.

I hope everyone is doing well! keep sending me updates, I love reading them. I am slowly getting the packages people sent, so thank you very much. I miss you!

The season to be jolly

Oh hey! I’m back. How’s everyone doing? USA treating everyone well? I hope so.

Here is the blog about my holidays, please send me updates on your own holiday stories! I’d love to hear them. For the holidays, the volunteers in my cluster planned to meet in Meiganga at my friend Emma’s house. Meiganga is a city that is a 4-8 hour prison bus ride depending on how many times the bus either breaks down, gets stuck in ditches, or just stops in general. And to clarify, its not an actual prison bus, but a metal van, with metal seats and a cage that separates the driver from the passengers, with large windows and a bar going across them. The bus piles as many people into it, or on it, as possible. People are hanging onto the back, sitting on each other, or on the roof with the luggage. Whatever you can get.

As my first solo traveling experience, I was intrigued to see how my prison bus ride would go today and how long it would actually take to get to my destination. While I was waiting for the bus (its rare that anything ever starts or leaves remotely on time), I was offered by a ride to Meiganga by a moto driver. So, instead of a cramped, long prison bus ride, I rode on the back of a motorcycle through the African bush during sunrise for 2 hours. It was beyond beautiful and the moto driver and I had some nice, friendly conversations. It was a 2 hour moto ride afterall.

After that great start to my holidays it only got better. Filled with great food, people, and drinks, Christmas was a success. We spent the day before Christmas preparing the numerous types of chicken, mashed potatoes, vegetables, and delicious desserts. To try and put our minds in the Christmas spirit despite the very warm temperatures and desert-like area we we were in, there was a handmade Christmas tree on the wall, Christmas lights, Christmas music, and Its a Wonderful Life playing from a computer. A definite success. After a night of food and dance parties, we woke up and had delicious crepes, our secret Santa gift exchange, and a day of relaxation. A few of us went to the bar at around 4, and then came back to help with the delicious homemade Mexican feast. A handful of my friends decided to go to a concert, a famous Cameroonian musician was in town. Shortly after they left, we receive a call from them saying that they missed the concert but what did we think of the band coming back to the house for a private concert? And just like that, we had another dance party, but this time with a live, Cameroonian band. The music was great and the musicians were very friendly, nice people. After over an hour of music they hung out at Emma’s, finishing up our first Christmas in Africa with us. We couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Next holiday- New Years Eve! A few of us (2 of the volunteers in Meiganga and a Cameroonian friend) piled into Youssoufa’s pick-up truck to head back to Djohong for New Years. The first night we made pizzas and relaxed. Actually, food and relaxation are 2 great words to describe the holidays haha. The day of New Year’s Eve we walked around visiting people in Djohong, and each person we went to invited us all to the party at the Sous-prefet’s. So, even though we had planned on camping en bruisse for the night, we changed plans and went to the party. It was a very interesting experience. Everyone would hand in their invitations and then take a seat. After a few speeches by officials, we were then called up to eat buffet-like style.While everyone was getting their food, there were a few people, one of them being a friend of mine, serving people drinks. Once everyone had gotten their food, the table was cleared and the sous-prefet went to the front of the room and read some names. These men and women were then assigned to dance with each other for a song. Thankfully, I wasn’t one of these unlucky individuals. Talk about awkward. After this odd dance, the party loosened up a little to allow others to dance instead of just watching these people uncomfortably dancing. It ended up being a great experience and a good time. The next day we all relaxed some more and then went on a gorgeous hike en bruisse to the valley. After taking in the view, we made the trek back, collecting wood along the way. After a delicious dinner, Emma, Youssoufa, Claire, Caleb and I sat around a fire outside and introduced Youssoufa to S’mores under the large, starry African sky.

Holiday season= success. The entire time, particularly New Years Eve, I kept having moments about how crazy this was. I am in Cameroon looking at these shooting stars, or dancing to Cameroonian tunes as the band plays and my new friends watch, join, or sing along. I never in a million years would have predicted that my next holiday would one- be in Cameroon, and 2- be seeing and experiencing everything that I have thus far. Definitely puts a smile on my face every time I remember that.

I truly hope that everyone’s holidays were great and filled with dancing and smiles. I miss everyone and think of you all constantly!

Keeping my eyes and ears open

Hey everyone! Once again, I’m sorry that its been over a month since I last posted. The holiday season has come and gone and I truly hope that it was a good one for everybody. I am now at my post, Djohong, and settling in pretty well. It’s a beautiful, tranquil village, and for the most part, the people here have been extremely generous, friendly, and welcoming. Particularly the family who lives in my compound and the people that work at the District Hospital. My house is a 2 minute walk away from the center of the village, where there are a few stores and where the big market is on Thursdays. My house is a small with a front room, a latrine, and my bedroom, with a kitchen in my front yard (its a little mudhut with a straw roof haha, i like it. Though its a little dark in there). All of this is surrounded by a fence of something straw-like, and then Bah-iya and his 2 wives and kids are right on the other side, less than a foot away. I now have pictures from coloring books taped all over my wall, adding some color and life to my front room which I appreciate. When I am home I am almost never alone, at least one child, but usually if there’s one word spreads quickly, is in my house drawing or just hanging out.

I’ve been asked pretty often, “What is your typical day like?” I will attempt to answer that question here. One thing that you should know that it is hard for my to pinpoint what a typical day is like. I tend to have no idea what my day will consist of when I wake up. When I first arrived I was traveling to nearby villages with the head doctor for the vaccination campaign and malnutrition screenings. So for at least a week I was caught up in a whirlwind of activity, seeing things that shocked and amazed me every hour of the day. I would also watch rounds at the hospital and observe prenatal consultations. If I’m not traveling or at the hospital, I like to walk around the village and say hi to every person who walks by, and if I don’t feel like saying hi to everyone I shouldn’t walk around haha. I might meet with the traditional leader of the village just to say hi or stay at home and hang out with the family, either by attempting to help them make traditional meals, getting my hair braided, trying to learn the local dialect, Fulfulde, or just sitting there and talking in French. I usually have tea with Bah-iya everyday, which is a time that I have begun to look forward to. A nice cup of tea, or 2 or 3 cups (he really likes tea), and a nice disjointed conversation in French for around 2 hours. The main aspect of my days is truly just keeping my eyes, ears, and heart open to basically anything because thats what keeps everything interesting.

An example of this- Just a few days ago, after saying the greetings in Fulfulde to each person in the family (takes a solid 5 minutes of just hello, and how was your days), I walk up onto Bah-iya’s porch, take off my shoes and enter ready for my cup of tea. There was another man there huddled in the corner, which wasn’t too surprising since people walk in and out of Bah-iya’s place all the time. This tiny, old man ended up being the traditional leader of a village around an hour drive away. However, since very few people have cars here, he biked the 2 hours just to say hi to his friend Bah-iya and give his respects to the head doctor. He only speaks Fulfulde, so Bah-iya translated for me to French which is still also a gamble if I understand or not. Unfortunately, this man didn’t get too much time to meet with the doctor, so I wasn’t too surprised when the doctor informed me that he was going with Bah-iya to this man’s village. I was invited to join, but initially said no. Afterall, these three men would be spending the entire time speaking in Fulfulde and I was getting a little tired of sitting in a room not understanding a word that was spoken. Then I remembered something another volunteer told me, never say no to any opportunities, just say yes and what the hell, it might actually be fun. So I went. This village was extremely en bruisse. When I say extremely I mean that when we drove an hour on the roads that I always labeled as en bruisse, we then left the road for a bike path. We drove on this path with the pick up truck for around 15 minutes and an entourage of men on motorcycles who were instructed to meet us, and then parked the car and walked another 10-15 minutes along a windy path up and down hills. Eventually we arrived at a valley, surrounded by gorgeous mountains and hills, fields of bright green crops, with specks of little mud huts in all directions. It was stunning. We then sat with the chief in a mudhut, I listened to Fulfulde, and at some point in their conversation it was decided that we’d go on a walk to visit the nearby river. We walked through crushed fields where elephants had just stampeded through the week before, crossed little streams that had makeshift logs as bridges, and finally arrived at a beautiful river where three women were gathering their day’s supply of water. Needless to say, I felt that I was once again truly seeing Africa. I was so happy that I went, I fell in love with this little village and its people, and asked Bah-iya if I can travel with him to visit whenever he goes. He happily said yes, and so I hope to one day work with them, and if not just spend time there.

Anyway, sorry this is a long blog, so if you are still reading I’m impressed. hopefully I’ll post another blog sooner than later about my holiday season here. Miss everyone and I hope everyone is doing well. Congratulations to Erin and Jen!! I love and miss you guys and am so happy for you.

Thanksgiving extravaganza and Swearing-In

Oh hey guys. Hope all is well where you are and that you're Thanksgiving was awesome. As I'm sure you all assumed, Cameroonians don't celebrate Thanksgiving. So, my fellow trainees and I decided to take matters into our own hands and make sure we celebrate the glorious day of food. We all put money together and bought a turkey. This turkey was a large ugly thing that decided to constantly talk to itself. It was kept outside the training center, in the back of the building, very close to where I had my French class. So I had the honor of listening to it talk to itself incessantly. In fact, I started to call it Gobble, granted I tried to keep this name to myself knowing this poor turkey's fate. Fortunately, I wasn't in charge of Gobble's demise or the cooking of him. I was given the job of cooking mashed potatoes with 3 other girls. This wasn't exactly easy since we had a spoon to mash the potatoes (pounds of potatoes, enough for 50 people), powdered milk, and butter that's really margarine. We also didn't really have too many other tools but our swiss army knives, but it all worked out and we carried our glorious mashed potatoes in a large pot victoriously back to the training site where the festivities were about to begin. Everyone really pulled together and, as a result, we had tons of food and drinks. Stuffing, macaroni and cheese, turkey and gravy, a bunch of different desserts, and lots more. It ended up being a huge success and a great time.
After over 2 months in Cameroon, filled with traveling mishaps, laughs with new friends, 2 new families and what came with that, illnesses, learning French, learning how to take a moto, dealing with the new food mentally and physically, and tons of other aspects that led to an unbelievable experience, 48 of us swore in as Peace Corps volunteers. During those two months, 2 of us did go home, and I admire their courage and wish them the best of luck with whatever they end up doing.
The Swearing-In ceremony was good. It was like a graduation where all the graduates want to do is get their diplomas and go celebrate. Instead you have to sit and listen to numerous speeches, and at this ceremony half of them are in languages you don't understand, like fulfude and pidgin. Some were in French which I can honestly say I understoof half of. Maybe. Our host families were there as well, and I can imagine that it was even more boring for them. Once again, just like any other graduation. Really exciting, but everyone is also thinking about how they are all going their separate ways afterwards. So, to try and forget that for a night, we all spent that night at a hotel where we just talked, drank, and had a dance party. Good times.
A quick side story- During that night, I went up to my room quickly to grab some soda for a friend. I decided while I was up there to use the bathroom quickly then head back down. Unfortunately, things don't ever go as planned. My hotel room, which I was sharing with Meg, didn't have a working light. So i left the front door open to find the bathroom light. The bathroom door wouldn't close unless I locked it, and I didn't want to leave it open with the room door open, so I locked it. Mistake. I found out a few minutes later that once you lock the door, it doesn't unlock very easily. In fact, it doesn't unlock at all. So I was stuck. I even tried using a variety of tools to help me unlock the door, but no cigar. Luckily I actually had my cell phone with me, thanks to awesome pockets in my skirt. I called Meg telling her I had a slight problem. She comes up, and once surveying the problem bursts out laughing. Together we laugh for a little but then decide that I can't stay in the bathroom forever. We decide to grab Trevor as well for assitance. Meg and Trevor then proceed to work with a leatherman, and a variety of other tools, to get me out for around 45 minutes. It was a really freaking strong door. It was pretty much being destroyed but refused to surrender and let me out. Eventually Trevor was like alright Lindz, I think you should just try and push. So I try that, again, but that didn't really work (not surprising). Then we decided kicking was a good option. After 3 solid kicks, James Bond style, I kicked down the bathroom door. Badass. Though I guess a badass wouldn't have gotten locked in the bathroom in the first place. I'll let you guys decide. Regardless, it was a hilarious situation and I once again have to thank my two amazing friends for helping me get out.
Anyway, I am now in Ngaoundere, a stop on my way to my post, Djohong. After a train ride that actually left and arrived on time without incident (very pleasant surprise haha), I've spent the past 2 days wandering around Ngaoundere attempting to buy things for my house. I won't have electricity or running water and very little cell  service, but there is an area 4 km outside my town where I can get service, so if you want to set up a time and day I'll be at that spot for a phone date! I miss you guys and I hope I'll talk to everyone soon.

MTV explanations and mouse explosions

Hey everyone, I realized that I haven't blogged once since my site visit posting and decided that I should attempt to send another post out there. Granted, one of the reasons I haven't been blogging is that, for me, everything has slowly slipped into the "same old." Guess that means I'm transitioning well enough though. These past 2 weeks have been filled with Training. Some of the trainees had their presentations this Saturday (a 20 minute presentation in French, always a good time), and we also had our language assessments. I'm not up to the level I need to be at, so I need 20 more hours of French before I can take another test. Lots of French. However, my class is just me and one other person, Hunter, and we have decided to take French lessons into our own hands. So now our classes have been entirely about our interests. We also took it upon ourselves to explain to our French teacher that Parental Control (the MTV show that they apparently watch here) is not real America, that the parents do not typically line up suitors for their child to choose from.She also asked us about Room Raiders and the Jersey Shore, so we spent around 45 minutes explaining what a Guido was. Needless to say, it was actually a pretty hilarious conversation. Thank you Mtv.
So yea, not too much going on, so I'll just throw in a story from a few weeks ago. When I was still in Nyamsung, the village next to Bafia, after Training my fellow Trainees and I went straight to the bar afterwards, our normal routine. Eventually, I trudge back home, dreading having to use whatever little energy I had left to try and speak French for 3 more hours and cook Cous-Cous. Once I arrived, I went straight to my room to drop off my bag and was hit by a horrendous smell. The kind of smell that literally makes you stop and say outloud to no one in particular, "Holy shit." At first, I thought that the garbage in my room had finally started to smell. Considering the heat this seemed reasonable, so I immediately grabbed my makeshift garbage bag and sprinted out the door. There is no place to put garbage in Cameroon, no garbage trucks come by to pick up the trash, so people tend to just throw it in every direction. I feel bad about doing that, ruining the environment and all, so I ran around in circles holding this bag until my host mom finally took it from me. Relieved, I went back into my room and opened my windows for the first time since living there. The smell made it necessary. After an hour or so I went back into my room and the smell was still there, in fact, it had gotten significantly worse. I could basically taste it.
I decided to look around, because this was getting ridiculous. Of course I find what everyone wants to see in their room... a mouse. However, this mouse had suffered considerably more than any other mouse that I've ever heard of. This mouse had exploded. Yup, I know how to make a mouse explode. Though, I'd say it was more natural selection running its course. This intelligent creature had eaten my laundry detergent. Now it left me 3/4 of its body intact, its ass separated from the rest of it and in pieces, the back feet several inches away from the ass, and the tail in two pieces even farther away.
Slowly, I backed away and ran out of the room to go get some assistance. I found my host mom and attempted to explain that a mouse exploded in my room. This consisted of me hysterically laughing, saying the word mouse in French and boom, with hand signals to show an explosion. She looked at me like I had officially snapped from the "culture shock" that she was warned about. Eventually, I convinced her to come to my to my room and see for herself. Yup, no denying it, she agreed while looking at the body parts, BOOM.
We had the lovely job of cleaning this up, which was a great bonding experience. Then it was dinner time. We both stared at our food and decided that maybe dinner wouldn't be our thing tonight. Such a shame, missing cous-cous, fortunately we can count on having it basically every night after that. Afterwards I decided it was bedtime, so I went to try and close my windows. Wouldn't close. Ugh. Went back out to get my host mom to explain the new situation. After around 45 minutes and enlisting my host dad for help, the windows finally closed. As my host mom and I turned towards my bedroom door to leave, the lightbulb falls from the ceiling and shatters on my floor. My one lightbulb- and we actually had electricity that night. I burst out laughing. This whole night had just been ridiculous. My host mom obviously agreed because she turned to me and said go to sleep and pray. This made me laugh even harder as I nodded in agreement.
Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. So that was just one of the many weird experiences I've had in Africa. Its definitely saying something that when my friends ask "How are things?" I respond with "same old."