I spent 20 minutes that night stomping on giant ants. Hundreds of them crawling under my door, attracted to the light from the dark night outside. My cat is only good for moths and skeeter eaters is what we call them in texas so it was my job to do some pest control. I followed the trail all the way up to my stand in kitchen. A counter with my cooking stove and stacks of pantry items, plates and utensils. I opened the box of sugar cubes and SCREAMED. Thousands of ants scattered to avoid the light and dig deeper into the new home they had claimed during my weekend out of town. In the morning, my floor that had been previously littered with little curled black insects was clean. Through the night i guess the ants had carried the injured back to where they came from, like the aftermath of a war, to give them proper burials. They only missed a couple that Bellatrix had tracked into my bed. grossed. out.

This was the final straw.

Shady Sam, the landlord, assured me the key was coming saturday because the mama with the key who lives in Doala was coming for a funeral. Hallelujah! After discovering the ants saturday night while Sam was helping at the funeral I couldn’t have been happier to know I’d be leaving the next day. Though, as you have probably already guessed, things didn’t work out and I’m still waiting for the key. Sam told me the mama was sick so she couldn’t come, and that her son would come with it but he doesn’t have enough money. I couldn’t even look at him for another second so i said goodbye and walked away. This was the first time i cried in Africa. I’ve been so proud of myself for my patience here and dealing with small issues, but I finally broke down. I’ve been waiting for weeks now with Sam lying to my face with no intentions of getting a key while I teach his children at school. I cried on my walk home hoping no one would see me. I feel like I have to keep a straight face, here. Always being happy and excited and up for learning and dealing with Cameroonian cultural intricacies. At least now, at the beginning. I don’t know how my community would take me on a bad or emotional day seeing as the people here are not really allowed to cry and deal with these kinds of things on a daily basis. At least sympathy is not my expectation. It’s simply results.

Francis, my APCD/boss came to visit yesterday and check on my housing situation. Thank goodness. When he called me to tell me he was on his way I told him I was excited to see him because I needed his help. With Francis here I had muscle. I took him to the market (every 8 days theres a “big” market in my village where you can by vegetables and used clothes and shoes and jackets, handmade straw baskets and bags, and plants. We grabbed some pommes pillée from the mama who fed me last market day and sat at the bar drinking fanta and discussing how I’m doing so far. It was nice to have the feeling of support from the admin. I like Francis a lot, too. He’s new so little things don’t always go according to plan, but it means he’s fresh and trying really hard to adjust to the demands of his boss and his job. He also reminds me a lot of the character in Shantaram, the funny indian man with a full mustache you would expect. He’s always smiling and speaks very good english, and likes to joke around. We talked and went in and out of french and english while we finished our meals. I showed him my house and my barrier, everything I have access to. He met bellatrix/petite chauffeur as she hopped up on his lap and left little red dirt paw prints on his nice city slacks. He wrote down necessary notes, and then it was time to find Sam. We stopped first at the proviseurs office. Francis needed to meet with him about me and was hoping he’d slip the hint to the proviseur to pressure Sam as well. We continued to the market where Sam can usually be found walking around or sitting outside of a bar. He came up to the car after someone told him we were looking for him, and i stayed in while Francis worked his magic. They talked for a good amount of time and I pretended not to listen. Francis gave him an ultimatum to give him information by wednesday, or I’d be moving. He wants the amount of rent, when the key will come, how we can get the key, etc.

I’m still waiting for the news. Francis said he would call me Monday. It felt really cool driving around in the Range Rover with the big peace corps logo on it with Francis as my muscle and waving to my students and village through the window. I hope it works. I want to move in already. Oh, Francis also wrenched open on of the shutters so I got to see inside for the first time through the window! It’s so awesome! Couch, chairs, dining room table! It’s perfect for visitors and parties. I want to invite the teaching staff over, and PCVs. I can’t wait. I hope it all works out.

9/8/11

My diet here, post moving to bandenkop, has turned very similar to how it was at home—lots of vegetables balanced out with baked goods and chocolate candies. Because of the cold and constant raining, soup has been my big experiment these first weeks. I’ve made a creamy potato veggie soup, and after having it for the next 3 meals and after eating out most of the potatoes, I added some cooked spaghetti and a can of tomato paste and voila! A new meal for the next day and a half—creamy “alfredo” pasta. The next soup I made was a lentil veggie stew. All it was missing was big chunks of roast. That also made 6 meals, but was really good! I splurged on the imported bag of lentils at the supermarche. 2 whole BUCKS.

Yesterday, Charmayne made the hour walk to Bandenkop from Bapa, and for the first time I got to give the tour of my house. I still don’t have the key to the main part of the house, but I did get to show her the room I sleep in and around the inside barrier that I’ve grown so fond of these past few weeks. She brought over cinnamon and baking soda so we could make cookies. We baked them inside a pot, and they turned out awesome. Mediocre at best in the states, but sooo good in Cameroon! I ate about 8 in one sitting, and dipped into the batter from time to time, since only 6 cookies can bake at a time.

Today marked the end of the first week of school! Monday, I arrived 25-ish minutes early to school, which is laughable now and probably was then, too, but I just couldn’t help it. I was too excited. School begins at 8, but you have to wait for the proviseur (principal) first, before you can begin. Monday, he was over half an hour late, along with the majority of the teachers. The censeur (vice principal) assured me they’d come within the first hour, students too, and that it was just first day normalcy. I went back to reading my book, while my teaching time slowly dwindled. Another thing that is different in the cameroonian school system is that the students have a classroom and the teachers are the ones who move around to teach their levels and classes. I make an appearance to almost every classroom, and the teachers have no teachers lounge, no class to call their own and also to be noted, no bathroom. I wonder if this is one of the reasons why the american system works like it does—getting kids literate and off to college.. They have a problem with getting qualified teachers, but there really are no benefits; no money, no classroom, no coffee, no bathrooms. Just a good name in the community and kids that all say they want to be teachers when they grow up, which makes you feel like you’re doing something right.

My Schedule:
Mon- 2h computers Quatrième (8th grade) 2h computers Sixième (6th grade)
Tues- 2h english Sixième 2h computers Cinqième (7th grade)
Wed- 1h english Sixième
Thurs- 2h computers Première (11th grade) 2h english Sixième
Fri- free

My sixième english class grew from 20ish the first day to over 60 today. It also started raining really hard right before I was leaving to teach and the proviseur made me wait so I wouldn’t get wet. 20 min later another teacher showed up with an umbrella and accompanied me. I didn’t give the kids their allotted break in-between the hours so I only lost 5 min. It’s good to know I haven’t completely lost my American punctuality and sense of accomplishment in efficiency.

During my free time I’ve been designing logos and day dreaming about the restaurant/coffee shop I may someday open with Katie. It’s inspired by a dish here, that I can’t get enough of. I’m going to Bangangte tomorrow after I draft up some lesson plans for next week. I hear there’s a bunch of mamas who make spaghetti omelets, so I’ll get to try all different kinds for “research”.

9/2/11

I’ve been in Bandenkop for 2 weeks now and still have yet to move into my house. My landlord, Sam, keeps telling me that the key is with his aunt (who lives in Doala) and that she’s coming. She was supposed to come last week. Then last weekend. Then this week. I went to the village center to get food today—particularly to the beignet lady who sells plates of unsugared beignets and beans known as beans and puff puff in anglophone. The beignets were all out so my community hosts’ wife told me of another place to get food a few shacks down. I went in and asked what he had, which was nothing yet and everything required a 30 min wait. I ordered a spaghetti omelette—of course— and he told me 30 min, and quickly added “40 min max! max!” and I wandered off to kill time in the center. I talked to different gropes of people asking for directions to the library i’d heard about and just chatting. I ducked into the little room filled with 2 or 3 big shelves of books. It made me so happy to see semi-organized books. There was a boy at a computer who I assumed “ran the place” and i said hello and asked him if he read a lot. He laughed and responded yes and then i asked him if he was a student—hoping to have him in my class as the only cameroonian I know that reads for fun. Of course he isn’t, though; he attends the university of Dchiang, which I’m pretty sure is where the chief of my village goes for high school. I wonder if they run into each other..

I poked around the shelves, taking books off to read the covers and thumb through the brown, aged pages. Almost all of the spines are deteriorated on the books, giving the bookshelf a much less organized look and feel, but the old, worn books were categorized into Spiritual, Children’s, Pedagogic (Teaching Books), English, French, and Computers. Most of the books were old textbooks, which explains the categories, but I’m happy there’s a library nonetheless.

Back at the restaurant, and 15 pages in my book later I finally had my spaghetti omelette on a plate in front of me. It took exactly an hour. Who knows why an omelette takes an hour, here. I don’t ask questions. Sam rides up on his moto , just to chat, i guess. I don’t think he knows how mad I am on the inside perhaps, because of my friendly smile and my small town southern charm. I ask him if he has my key yet, and he says it’s coming for the umpteenth time. I tell him that i’m not patient like Cameroonians, and remind him I’m american. That I’ll be teaching his children on monday and I don’t even have a house. He laughs, and we sit in silence for the next few minutes, just looking off. Cameroonians are really good at this sitting and looking business and I hope I’ll be really good at it after 2 years, too.

School starts monday, and I finally got to meet with the Censeur (vice principle) yesterday to talk about the classes I’ll be teaching. Apparently the other computer teacher, Serges, might stay in Bafoussam and not teach this year. This means no german, and possible every grade class of computers (i offered if he doesn’t show) and then first year english. He sent a child to deliver my schedule to me at the restaurant. I’m excited, and a little nervous. I think it will be good to teach so many grade levels. I’ll have almost every student at the school in one of my classes. I’ve also gotten asked by adults if I’ll be teaching an adult english class. Can’t wait to start thinking about a secondary project!

6/20/11

I’m starting to feel very at home here. When I come home I usually find mama lydie behind the house fixing dinner and i usually ask her if i can help. Today I cut the garlic while mama lydie and anne made gumbo soup called héro (like “arrow”) and cous cous de maize which is basically grits. Except instead of putting okra in their gumbo here they cut up the leaves of the okra plant. (and it’s still slimy!) Don’t worry mom, I told mama lydie you made a wonderful gumbo and i told her all the different ingredients we use in the states. After that i headed over to eric’s to watch him make his birthday cake, but he was still ironing his cake. Stefani, his host mom, tricked me into peeling potatoes while she washed the cake pans—she’s very good at getting people to work when they’re at her house. Anyway, I came back home after all the potatoes were peeled and my family ate dinner. Jerry and I watched an anime tv show called death note in the living room. It’s just strange how quick I made this place home.

I think I may have been african in a different life. My friend Rusty once told me a time when he went outside his house in the country in Missouri and saw his dad sitting and looking out on the yard. Rusty asked him what he was doing and he responded, “Just watching the grass grow.” I love that. That’s how they live here. Tonight, Mama Lydie and I stood silent in the kitchen for a long five minutes watching and waiting for the water to boil for my filter. There’s a lot of porch sitting here too. Yesterday, papa pimento and I sat on the porch for probably 3 hours after I finished my laundry and just talked and listened to barry white and elton john cds. I also told him about Antonio Pomodoro, father’s day, weddings in america, and other random things that, and now every now and then he will walk by and say “tony pomodoro” or my favorite, “my belly done flop” which is pidgin for “I’m full” and is guaranteed to be said by my host dad after dinner at least 10 times. He’s a comedian. Other awesome pidgin phrases:

gov’ment cetchum fella – police

and

buyam sellam – used clothes venders

6/19/11

It turns out rainy sundays are just as good in Cameroon as they are in the states. It rains so hard here sometimes, we have to run around closing all the windows. Today my desk got soaked. Other volunteers have said that when it rains they think their roof is going to cave in, but after ranking the volunteers host houses I came in the top 3 so I’m not worried about blowing away with the winds or being washed down the red dirt road. My laundry is soaking in a tub with soap and well water and waiting for me when the rain stops. Until then I’ll just sit in my bed, listening to fourth of july and my bowerbirds and count the minutes until my parents call me at 6! Happy Fathers Day!

6/16/11

I’m over language classes. Today we had three language classes and one tech training. I like talking with my family to practice better than I like going to class, but all I ever do is wake up at 6:30, go to class and return home to do my homework at 7. I feel bad, but really I’d rather just hang out with my family and speak french all day. Today after school, “other Eric” Barrett and I rode a moto to the supermarché (4 people 1 moto!) so I could buy the rest of the ingredients I needed to make the pasta sauce and garlic bread. It was fun since yesterday we talked about bargaining and went to the supermarché on a field trip, and I’m still riding that high of adrenaline one gets when they bargain for the bonne prix. When I got back home eric had boiled most of the pasta so i started cutting tomatoes and putting them on to boil. Mama Lydie and Anne showed me how to use the “pierre” to mash the basil, garlic and chili pepper. The pierre is a big flat stone that you can place anything on and using a big round stone you roll it over the whole condiments. You can make a paste out of anything with it. Anne told me it would take 3 hrs to acrasser 20 tomatoes for the sauce so we just used their blender. Eric buttered the bread and spread the remaining crushed garlic along the halves. We put it in the oven and set the table as the rest of the family had gathered by the tv. Eric went to go get his host mom and her baby, Samuela, and when they arrived we sat and started serving.

Eric’s mom kept giggling like pasta with tomato sauce was the craziest thing she’d ever heard of. I think she was the only one who didn’t care for the meal though. Even the baby was eating noodles from my host dad’s lap. We cooked all six bags of pasta as advised by the ladies at the grocery store, but it proved to be way too much. Just as I’d predicted. It will make a great lunch for tomorrow. The electricity went out at the end of the meal so we ate our pineapple by light of a few kerosene lamps. I think it was a hit. I love my host family. I hope everyone else isn’t jealous that I got the best one.

6/15/11

I just got off the phone with my parents. I’ve honestly never felt so good after talking to them. It feels like I haven’t talked to them in years, and it was starting to feel like I never would. The computers at the SED house keep breaking—having connection problems with the internet, power surges blowing outlets, and lack of basic electricity some times. The internet cafe I have heard has fast internet, but it’s the hottest place in the village and the computers cant read thumb drives. Not to mention they are probably infested with viruses so even if they could read USBs and I could get this journal onto my blog I could never use it again. Anyway, my parents were so happy to hear from me. I let them know I was alive—that I’d survived dysentery and the african hospital system. (We’ve come a long way from the Oregon Train it seems.) I let them know the 2 ways to get a hold of me for cheaper so they’re going to give me a call on sunday before they leave for the Bahamas with my aunt and uncles family. I told them I had the best host family—that they are good at teaching me how to do everything and making me repeat phrases I say incorrectly in french. I really don’t want them to worry about me, and I had so much to tell them! I love that family is so important here. Sometimes I want to cry when I think about how much I love my family and how lucky I am. So so lucky. I can’t wait until sunday when they call.

Yesterday Eric’s mom threw an office party. They’re were people there all night drinking and walking around the house. He had come over to tell me something that had happened at his house, but my family and I were sitting down for dinner. My host dad immediately got up and offered his seat to Eric to sit and eat. Eric sat and was served by my host mom and my host dad went to the couch to eat. My family is in love with Eric and it makes me so jealous. Anne is in town now—the oldest sister that lives with Jerry in Yaoundé for school. Jerry also returned yesterday, and had even brought back a dress as a gift for me. It was so pretty! I put it on in two seconds, and it was a little big, but I absolutely loved it. My first african dress! After dinner all the young people (including one of Anna’s guy friends from class who had come over for dinner) hung out on the veranda and listened to Jerry’s iPhone playing Ryhanna, Bruno Mars, 50 cent and other american pop/rap/hip-hop artists. We chatted until Eric’s mother came to make him come home to clean up the party and mop the floors. I definitely got the best family.

Today, Eric, me, Michelle and Sam took motos to the supermarche next to a big marketplace to find “pange” (pony) which is the fabric used to make all the clothes and dresses here. Eric and I also bought a bunch of pasta because tomorrow we are cooking dinner for our families. Past with a tomato sauce and garlic bread. I asked mama Lydie if she could teach me how to use the big grinding stone for mashing the garlics, tomato and little red pimento peppers. I hope they like italian food!

6/13/11

School is a lot more hectic here than I had imagined. This morning my family woke me up at 6 by turning up the stereo in their room really loud at 6 am and then knocking on my door 10 min later when it seemed their plan hadn’t worked. I made the mistake of not being able to have my usual chocolat chaud yesterday morning because I was finishing up homework and running late so this morning they wanted me up early no exceptions. I had to go to the end of the road to buy bread, and then ate breakfast with my dad, sat for 20 min and then left for school. We started out with our first technical training session today, and went over the correct way to write a class objective. After 2 hrs of tech was language for another hour or so. By the end I felt like it was already 3 in the afternoon. We ate lunch at the lycee (high school) for the first time. Usually we walk back to the SED house where there’s some ladies who sell us lunch. Today lunch was a whole lot cheaper, but we heard it was the first time these new ladies were selling lunch for the PCTs so they haven’t upped the prices yet, and word has gone around already not to mention it.

After lunch was another tech lesson where we learned how to crimp FTP cables and theoretically connect 3 computers to a single server (configure a LAN network). I am a little nervous to be learning so much at once and then have to be depended on at my post to know the solution to every problem. I just need to take a ton of notes and soak it all up like a sponge. So far I think I’m pretty good at crimping cables! After this lesson was another language class. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m on my period, but I’m already getting tired of language class. It gets so frustrating not understanding so much all the time. My teacher talks so fast, but I do think I’m getting better already and it’s only been a week. This afternoon we talked a ton about Polygamy and the pros and cons. It was difficult to discuss especially since our teacher comes from a polygamist family. Her mom is one of 5 wives I think. After class was the bar. It’s always the bar. They have to love when PCTs come in town and buy beers and hunks of bread every day. Eric and I did homework on the porch when we got back. I love that it’s becoming a tradition.

I came back early from site visit at Bandenkop to help put together the computer lab for model school. Another volunteer, Kalika, and I spent yesterday plugging everything in and taking things out of boxes and today I hooked up 10 computers to a network. Now I’m blogging to celebrate! Finally. The connection is super slow, but I’m glad to have anything at all. There are 30 computers in our lab all together and hopefully I can get a picture up tomorrow.

I love my post that got to visit the last week. It’s the colorado of Afrika-cold, dry and in the mountains except with a feq more palm trees and some giant eucalyptus trees that look like they’ve been there for millions of years. It’s a tiny village and I only have 350 student at my school. My proviseur wants me to teach computers to the 3 older grades, as well as english to the first years and german to the 4th years! I’ll be busy but I’m so excited! Everyone in the town is excited that I’m coming in September which is all i could have asked for.

I’m going to buy an avacado sandwich from the lady with the stand right next to the lycee here in Bafia. After that Kalika and I are going to send off the other half of the trainees (small enterprise development) who are leaving for their site visits today. I’m so happy because Natalie, one of my good friends here, got the town 10 min from me. Can’t wait. Love you all. I’ve been writing lots of posts on my laptop that just need to be loaded up. Soon enough.

xoxo